Rising Cost Of Health Care Essay

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The Rising Costs of Healthcare 1 The Rising Costs of Healthcare Top Reasons Why We Are Seeing Rises in Healthcare Cost Chris Franz Kaplan University MT305 Professor Schreeder October 10, 2009 The Rising Costs of Healthcare 2 The face of healthcare today is ever changing in all aspects, whether talking on a technological side or a political side. As healthcare professionals, patients, insurance agencies, and medical companies, we must evolve and keep up with the changes that come each year. In this paper we are going to discuss some of the biggest cost impacts we see every year in healthcare. Some of the areas we will concentrate on are insurance, advances in medical care, demographics, changes in patient provider relationships, government support, and consumer expectations. The subject we are going to tackle first is how health insurance in general, influences costs each year. First off, insurance is defined as a mechanism against risk. In healthcare, illnesses that require treatments, surgeries, rehab, and long term care pose a substantial risk to most people. Insurances usually require their policy holders to pay copays, a deductible, or both each time a health care service is needed. The rationale for the cost sharing is to control the utilization of health services. In other words by…show more content…
Aging populations also bring on new patterns of work and retirement. People will spend more time in retirement which will strain our existing health and pension programs. On top of it, currently 80% of older Americans are living with one chronic condition, and 50% with at least two. Among Americans, close to 95% of healthcare expenditure is for treating chronic illnesses, which answers why the cost of providing care for people of age 65 or older is three to five times more expensive than that of someone younger than

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