Carelessness or Health Care?
What is our state of mind in reforming health care today? Crazy first comes to my mind in how we
address the symptoms instead of the problem of today’s health crisis. Health carelessness and mismanagement can be
corrected only if we fully embrace wellness, prevention and wise care.
Presently our economy totals 15
trillion dollars. U.S. total healthcare
expenditure is $2.7 trillion or 18 percent of GDP. It is forecasted to reach 34 percent of GDP
by 2040. In 2010 Americans spent $1.3
trillion on health care. Multiple chronic illness cases that make of just one
percent of care consume 21 percent of this total amount. While the last 50 percent of patients account
for the 2.8 percent of spending last year. Contrary to popular opinion only 10 percent of
health care dollars are spent in the last year of life. While increased money is spent in last few
months approaching death it is not the massive percentage of medical care
dollars that is widespread believed.
http://www.governing.com/topics/health-human-services/The-Economics-of-Dying.html[1]
Health
care spending is forecasted to account for nearly 20 percent of gross domestic
product (GDP), or one-fifth of the U.S. economy, by 2021. It’s has estimated
that wasteful
spending may account for between one-third and one-half of all U.S. health care
spending. The largest area of this waste is
defensive medicine, including redundant, inappropriate or unnecessary tests and
procedures. Other factors that contribute to this excessive spending include
non-adherence to medical advice and prescriptions, alcohol abuse, smoking and
obesity. Other
factors that contribute to wasteful spending include non-adherence to medical
advice and prescriptions, alcohol abuse, smoking and obesity.
Each year more than one out of every four adults experiences a diagnosable mental disorder. PriceWaterhouseCoopers estimated that the medical treatment, non-medical and long-term-care costs related to brain disease in the United States in 2012 would exceed $900 billion each year. This year, direct treatment costs of $515 billion could approach almost 20 percent of all health-care spending. About 5 percent of our population — 7.2 percent in Rhode Island — has a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia, major depression or bipolar disorder
Experts cite exponential costs of treating illness if we invested in researching the roots and remedies of the problem. For example look at the figures of alcoholism in American today to see how underdeveloped our basic understanding is. Alcohol abuse is rising. Around 1 out of 6.
Mental health spending, both public and private, more than doubles its level in inflation-adjusted terms since 1986. However, direct mental health spending has remained roughly 1 percent of the economy since 1986, while total health spending climbed from about 10 percent of gross domestic product in 1986 to nearly 17 percent in 2009
Today United
States spends 5.6 percent of the national
health-care spending, or $113 billion
on mental health treatment. Most of this goes toward prescription drugs and outpatient treatment. Our
country had 156,300 mental health counselors in 2010 and access to mental health care is worse than
other types of medical services.
Mental
health care is expensive, with 45 percent of the untreated citing cost as a
barrier. A quarter of the 15.7 million
Americans who received mental health care listed themselves as the main payer
for the services, according to one survey that looked at those services from
2005 to 2009.
Another
major challenge is that prevailing attitudes.
Many mental health patients who consider
about going to the doctor but decided against it.
The jury
is still out regarding Obama Care. However, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obama Care) creates
more mental health mandates, by requiring all insurers who sell on the
exchanges to include such treatments in their benefit packages. Also how the
rest of this act works out will take time to sort out.
Managing my father’s health care I
have observed first hand overspending, waste and inefficiency. He spent over four decades of his life work
writing major health care legislation as a Congressional lawyer and researcher
including staff on the House Ways and Means Committee assisting with of
Medicare and Social Security issues.
Comments