I believe one of the major reasons for the rising cost of health care is the aging population. The older an individual gets the more access he or she will need to healthcare. An aging individual needs to maintain a level of preventative medicine in an effort to find problems and limit the services needed. When accessing preventive services and problems are found the new and emerging treatments of the day have significant costs involved. Because people find themselves without insurance they are not scheduling the preventative exams and when a problem is eventually found the costs of the treatments increase even more.
Another reason for the rising cost of healthcare is the economy. Inflation affects all aspects of an economy. The cost of everything is increasing; food, electricity, telephones, gasoline, automobiles and labor. According to the national health Expenditure (NHE) the recession is anticipated to cause divergent trends in health spending growth for private and public payers in 2008 and 2009. This will cause projected faster growth in both Medicaid enrollment and expenditures; public spending growth on health care is projected to accelerate from 6.4 percent in 2007 to 7.4 percent by 2009. Medicare spending growth is likewise projected to be robust in 2008 and 2009 at approximately 8.0 percent per year. (CMS, 2010)
The Term Paper on Mental Health Parity Percent Treatment
Introduction: The Mental Health Parity Act (MPHA) refers to the law that requires the health insurance provider to cover mental health and substance abuse services as much as other physical health services. President Clinton signed Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 into law on September 26 1997. MHPA was headed by Senator Domenici whose daughter suffers from schizophrenia and senator Wellstone ...
Another factor in the rising cost of healthcare is new technology and the costs associated with the implementation of these new procedures such as; the costs of new equipment, drugs and the salaries of the skilled people involved in providing the services. The development of new technology increases utilization of services and expenses increase. (Raffel, Raffel, Barsukiewicz, 2002)
I am not convinced that the increase in healthcare spending is entirely a bad thing. When comparing United States healthcare spending to other countries, if we have more means and access to cutting edge treatments as compared to Canada or the United Kingdom why our healthcare spending habits should be criticized? For example, you wouldn’t criticize the spending habits of a middle class family compared to those of a working class family. The two families have different access to funds; it is not that they are spending more than they should. Politicians want US citizens to believe that we are overspending. Every time you turn on the news there is something about healthcare reform or healthcare fraud. It causes the “consumers” of healthcare to gain a bad view of the healthcare providers that they are greedy, when in reality they are just trying to provide a service and get paid what they deserve.
According to data released by CMS, growth in national health expenditures (NHE) in the United States is projected to be 6.1 percent in 2008. National health spending is expected to increase from $2.2 trillion in 2007 to $2.4 trillion in 2008. Average annual NHE growth is expected to be 6.2 percent per year for 2008 through 2018. Over the full projection period (2008-2018), average annual health spending growth is anticipated outpace average annual growth in the overall economy (4.1 percent) by 2.1 percentage points per year. By 2018, national health spending is expected to reach $4.4 trillion and comprise just over one-fifth (20.3 percent) of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The Term Paper on United Kingdom Afghanistan Healthcare Health
Throughout this report, the above question will be answered through consideration of two contrasting countries: the United Kingdom and Afghanistan. Firstly, however, a definition of the title is required. Quality means "the degree or standard of excellence"1, while health provision may be defined as "a complete state of physical, mental and social well-being, not merely in the absence of disease ...
This is important data that reflects the expected healthcare spending over the next 10 years. (CMS, 2010)
References
Marshall W. Raffel, Norma K. Raffel, Camille K. Barsukiewicz (2002).
The U.S. Health System: Origins and Functions, 5th Edition.Clifton Park, NY: Delmar Cengage Learning.
CMS: National Health Expenditure, retrieved from http://www.cms.hhs.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/proj2008.pdf
