Question

One of the most critical and hotly debated industries in the United States is healthcare. For this paper, you will examine the state of health care in the United States. As a starting point, you should read chapter 24 of the text and then after conducting your own research (3 additional sources minimum) write a 2-3 page paper that examines the following aspects of health care in the United States:

1. How much is spent on health care in the United States annually?

2. What is the basic structure of our system and how does it compare to other industrialized nations in terms of outcomes (be certain to identify what parameters you are using as a metric) and costs?

3. What are some unique challenges that health care presents from a consumer standpoint?

4. What have been some interventions by the government to make healthcare more accessible and affordable to the public and what have been the outcomes?

5. Do you think that the Singapore model could be replicated here? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Question 1 answer :-

The United States, on a per capita basis, spends much more on health care than other developed countries; the chief reason is not greater health care utilization, but higher prices, according to a study from a team led by a Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researcher.

National healthcare spending is projected to grow to $3.6 trillion in 2019, up 4% from $3.5 trillion in 2018, according to new predictions from Fitch Solutions.

The United States spends more on health care than any other country in the world, and a large share of that spending comes from the federal government.

In 2017, the United States spent about $3.5 trillion, or 18 percent of GDP, on health expenditures – more than twice the average among developed countries.

Of that $3.5 trillion, $1.5 trillion, is directly or indirectly financed by the federal government. In other words, the federal government dedicates resources of nearly 8 percent of the economy toward health care. By 2028, we estimate these costs will rise to $2.9 trillion, or 9.7 percent of the economy. Over time, these costs will continue to grow and consume an increasing share of federal resources.

Over the long term, the rising cost of federal health care spending is clearly unsustainable. Without a course correction, the result will be program insolvency, crowding out of important public priorities, and a growing federal debt.

Given how central health care spending is to the federal budget, it is important to understand how that spending is distributed and how it will grow. This paper will provide background on major health care programs in the federal budget. It is the first in a series called the American Health Care initiative, a joint collaboration of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Concerned Actuaries Group.

Federal health spending has grown significantly over the past several decades and is projected to grow in the future. Spending on the major federal health programs – Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the health insurance exchange subsidies created under the Affordable Care Act – has increased from 0.8 percent of the economy in 1970 to 3.1 percent by 2000 and 5.4 percent in 2017 (total federal resources dedicated to health care, which include tax benefits as well, total about 8 percent of the economy). In dollar terms, major federal health spending has grown by 230 percent since 2000, while economy-wide prices have only risen 40 percent, and the economy has only grown by 90 percent. This growth is due to both automatic growth in enrollees and health care costs as well as health care expansions in the form of the Medicare prescription drug program and the Affordable Care Act.

As the population ages and per-capita health care costs rise, nearly all forecasters expect federal health care spending to continue to grow. Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections and our own extrapolations, major federal health spending will rise from 5.4 percent of GDP in 2017 to 6.8 percent in 2028 and 8.4 percent by 2040.
Meanwhile, health care will consume a larger share of the budget over time. In 1970, major health programs made up only 5 percent of the budget. That share increased to 20 percent by 2000 and 28 percent by 2017. By 2028, one-third of federal dollars not spent on interest will go toward health spending, and by 2040, nearly 40 percent will. Even these estimates do not account for the erosion of the tax base resulting from the tax exclusion for employer-sponsored health insurance.