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Healthcare Spending

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Healthcare Spending
Diana L. Giese
Healthcare Economics HCS/440
October 31, 2011
Dr. John Gaze

Healthcare Spending

Healthcare spending is a major part of our nation’s problem today; we have the highest per capita of outlay than any other country in the world. This could be due to the increase knowledge of the use of medical technology, research for new diseases and longer life span within our population. In this paper the discussion will begin with a clear description on the allocation of funds towards the care of individuals participating in their need for proper care and conclude with overall view of how having this expenditure reformed could possibly support our country economically.
There are several factors that affect our healthcare cost, namely, price settings for the service offered has greatly influenced the high cost to those that are insured to compensate for the uninsured. With the many attributes of healthcare disbursements one must realize that it is far from the past when doctors were once the only recipients of payments for their services rendered. Here is a graph of 2008 total health expenditure as a share of GDP with other countries. According to Kaiser Family Foundation (2011), economist will measure the gross domestic products and the amount of money spent on a particular entity which in this case would be healthcare spending. This chart shows that rapid growth of outlays of the United States compared to other nations where we far exceed in spending. This growth in the GDP for America during 2000 to 2008 had an increase of 2.6% which was the largest healthcare expenditure throughout the various nations listed in Figure 1 according to Kaiser Family Foundation (2011).

Figure 1.

There are various groups that make up the health industries and supplies that are particularly different in the cost of spending. Figure 2 show that all

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