The health care price tag
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released figures this week about health care spending in the United States for 2006 (pdf). The total amount: $2.1 trillion. That's 16 percent of GDP. Or a little more than $7,000 per person. A few details and thoughts:
+ If you're concerned about government taking over health care... you may be too late. Spending by governments accounted for 40 percent of that $2.1 trillion. That's the largest single slice of the "who's paying" pie. Households were next at 31 percent, followed by businesses at 25 percent. The ranks of people 65 and older are going to swell in the next few decades (pdf), so government's slice of that pie almost surely will increase as more people go on Medicare.
+ For all the attention they get about their cost, prescription drugs are still only the third largest expenditure by category ($216.7 billion). We spend roughly three times that much on hospitals, and a little more than twice that on physicians and clinical services.
+ So what are getting in return for those trillions? On an individual level some of us are probably doing very well, but as a country maybe we should be looking for a partial refund. Or at least, have a stern conversation with someone on the customer service line. A study published in Health Affairs this week reported that the US ranks last among the 19 leading industrial countries in preventable deaths from treatable diseases. The number one country in the study was France, which spends roughly half what the US does on health care per person.
-Greg Dahlmann
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The situation is a little more complex than money spent on health care = health.
Here is the abstract of an article about a study done by Prudential in Memphis, TN, to find out why pregnant women were not availing themselves of prenatal care. For women on TennCare, the money for the healthcare was already paid to Prudential by the state. It was neither a matter of the money not being spent, nor the care not being available, it was a matter of the women not going to the doctor. The abstract lists some possibly contributing factors, including violence in the home. I don't know how anybody's healthcare initiative is going to fix that.
- by Laura(southernxyl) on Jan 9, 2008 at 6:38 PM | link
The important thing to take from your example is that domestic violence is, in itself, a health issue and indeed a public heath issue. We must do a better job of recognizing violence and understanding the effects it has on the person being victimized both in the immediate and longer term.
- by Chris on Jan 10, 2008 at 12:50 AM | link