Rising Health Care and Poverty Rising Health Care and Poverty in the U.S.A Introduction Rising health care costs and poverty have been on the rise since the early, 1990’s. Medical costs have more than doubled over the last decade, and health insurance premiums have risen nearly five times faster than wages. Americans are spending far more on health care than residents of any other industrialized county while receiving lower quality care overall. Clemmitt, Marcia (2006, April 7) Rising health cost (vol.16, Issue 13). The census data for 2006 shows that 36.5 million Americans or about one in eight lived below the federal poverty like of $20,614 in income for a family of four.
National Health Care Spending in the U.S. Cornelia R. McCoy HCS440 January 3, 2011 Kristina Gray National Health Care Spending in the U.S. Health care costs have been rising for several years. Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2.3 trillion in 2008, more than three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980 (Blumenthal, 2001). Decreasing this growth has become a major priority, while employers, consumers, as well as the government are challenged to keep up with health care expenditures. Dealing with this challenge will be very hard under any circumstances. So far, it has been proven impossible unless the circumstances that prevent poor and uninsured people from getting medical care are addressed concurrently.
The United States is making huge changes in the health care industry. The health care reform can improve the health care industry and lower the cost of health care if policies are developed with health care experts. There are many countries that have mechanisms in place that have lower the health care and improved the quality of their health care system. The United States is a leader in many areas and should be able to figure out a health care system with the P4P
HRSA projects that, absent aggressive intervention, in the year 2020 the shortage will grow to more than 1 million RNs-representing a shortage of 36% (2). The “Baby boomers” are also aging and entering retirement. This has placed additional demand for the services of Nurses. Demands for Nurses is high and is expected to increase as more of the population gains access to healthcare reform. According to the American College of Nurses, “the nursing shortage is very real and very different from any experienced in the past and will grow more serious over the next 20 years” (3).
Judging on the past of health care and the major developments that have been made in the last 150 years, the economics of it all have also changed dramatically. The demand for health care is nowhere near meeting the supply, struggling with retaining employees and offering efficient care all over the world. The health care economy is the most grossing industry in the United States, with a gross domestic product of 3.5 trillion dollars. With results like that, elasticity in health care seems somewhat unheard of. The need for health care is dire, yet the prices just increase.
As statistics show, there has already been an increase in the cost of health care partially due to the shortage in health care practitioners and the need to offer higher reimbursement for treatments. If predictions are true, and there is a shortage of 125,000 physicians by the year 2025, the cost of health care will increase more rapidly. Because health care and therefore an individual’s life is considered priceless, there are demand shifters that often affect the demand curve of a health care product. As demonstrated in the example above, physician loyalties and experience are just two of the many types of demand shifters. This demand shifters can cause an even steeper rise in health care cost in the real world.
SENIORS AND MEDICARE Page 1 Seniors and Medicare: Wellness Visits xxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx xxxxxxx Professor xxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxx SENIORS AND MEDICARE Page 2 Seniors and Medicare: The Wellness Visit The controversial new Healthcare Bill and the affects senior citizens are seeing though changes in Medicare. It has changed how Americans think about healthcare. The population grew at a faster rate in the older ages than in the younger ages. Large growth in this age group is primarily due to the aging of the Baby Boom population (U.S. Census Bureau 2010). The population of adults over
Vicki Parker Professor Oz Aydemir ECO 110 8 May 2014 The Impact of Health Insurance Health care is one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. In the past ten years health insurance premiums have doubled. The health care market cannot be analyzed by using the normal supply-and-demand curve, due to informational problems, market power by suppliers, and government intervention. Balancing the cost of care with the quality of care is a major issue, because the market structure of the health insurance industry impacts rising health care costs and limits access to affordable health insurance and health care. Health care is a unique product compared to other goods and services, as it is not easily defined.
Over the past years the cost of medical treatment is increasing faster than the income of the people living in the U.S., and it is expected to rise even more. The problems arising from this situation are nocking everybody’s door, and they are a special case for families under the category of low-income society who do not afford to have health insurance, which is very expensive. This condition is one headache for patients and their families in addition to the pain arising from their sickness. Only those who are insured can skip the situation. The question is how money Americas are insured?
It has been said that the U.S. health care industry is the world’s most inefficient information enterprise. Inefficiencies in medical record keeping are one reason why health care costs in the United States are the highest in the world. In 2012, health care costs reached $2.8 trillion, representing 18 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). Left unchecked, by 2037, health care costs will rise to 25 percent of GDP and consume approximately 40 percent of total federal spending. Since administrative costs and medical recordkeeping account for nearly 13 percent of U.S health care spending, improving medical record keeping systems has been targeted as a major path to cost savings and even higher quality health care.