Population Health Management

How Can We Stop The Phenomenon of Rising Healthcare Costs in the United States

Unfortunately, the cost of healthcare in the United States is rapidly outpacing the ability of most people to pay for it. We seem to be caught in a whirlwind of the drivers of the spiraling costs that have no end, and which are pricing most people right out of the market.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Supposedly the recent implementation of a government sponsored health care plan in the form of the Affordable Health Care Act, or Obamacare was supposed to alleviate the problem, but it has been so ill-formed and expensive, that most people cannot afford it.

In reality, the predominant groups of people who do purchase the Obamacare plans are those who get the most premium subsidies which offsets the premium costs. To most people having to pay $1,500 to $2,500 per month, with high deductibles of $3,000 to $6,700 is like having no coverage at all.

Then to add insult to injury, there is a penalty in the form of a tax for most people who fail to purchase it. The penalty, or additional tax in 2016 amounts to $695 per adult and $347 per child, or a maximum cap of #2,250 for a family.  To reduce the cost, HII, LLC has developed a predictive analytics population health management sofware.

The main cause of the tremendous inflationary growth of healthcare itself lies in the costs of the medical services themselves. The healthcare industry itself is a tremendous growth industry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People are amazed at the onslaught of pharmaceutical advertisements on television where it seems that every other commercial is pushing a new medication for just about everything. It is not unusual for many people to be taking from three to seven or eight different drugs, many of them to offset the side effects of previous drugs that they have been taking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is very rare for anyone to go to the doctor and not be prescribed some kind of medication. While it is true that our medical technology truly can be a miraculous thing, it can also be a very expensive miraculous thing.

Up to the present, most Americans have had fairly adequate health insurance coverage, which in turn, has just caused more and more expensive pharmaceutical and technological expansion of the system. It has also caused less transparency as to what these services have really cost the consumer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, the insurance covered it, but behind the scenes it has also encouraged the drug companies, the device manufactures, the doctors and the hospitals to prescribe these wonder drugs, devices and procedures without any regard to what they cost, simply because the insurance will cover it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is not to bash life saving drugs, procedures, and devices, but the bottom line is that some of the production line medicine overlaps, doesn't always work, and is pushed out upon the market without adequate testing procedures.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is no doubt that over the past 50 years there have been great strides made in our medical system's ability to give better medical care and that lives have been prolonged. On the other hand, there has been less in the way of the promotion of healthy lifestyles, more discipline in what we eat, and in basic good habits in regard to better individual health.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The struggle for parity in insurance premiums and rising healthcare costs have been in tandem as the premiums rise in proportion to the healthcare costs rising. The driving force in the seemingly impossible puzzle is, however the expanding health care costs themselves.

One wonders how many new hospitals, clinics, health centers, and new drugs we, as a society, we really need. It seems that a wholesale emphasis on cutting these costs, would do more good than just the rhetoric that we hear as far as putting the blame on other factors that are simply caused by the rising costs themselves.