Cost Of Health Care Essay

Over the course of the semester thus far we’ve learned about things like the health care system and structures, management roles, technology, and risk management. Something that has sparked interest is our health care prices, why exactly is the cost of health care so much. Clearly there is more than one reason behind this, but my focus is on how our drugs and technology impact the price of health care. The United States leads in health care expenditures, it’s estimated that we spend 50% more than the next leading country. In 2006 the United States spent 6,714 per capita on health and the next leading country, Norway, only spent 4,520 per capita. (J Flinders lecture 1, slide 3). Two of the main reasons our health care costs so much are technology and pharmaceutical drugs. It’s no secret that we want the best health care that money can buy, and that means new technology and newer drugs. If we look at technology in other parts of the economy, such as computers, improvements lead to services being less expensive. In other parts of our economy new technology typically means improvements in

Though we want the newest gadgets and best health care money can buy, needs for these products are lacking. Along with demand for technology and use of, we are spending money on implementing technology that isn’t substantially better than previous technology. Technology improvements with things such as computers are typically improvements that are needed. We now have computers that run faster, have a longer life span, and more storage. Our phones over the years have also made significant improvements such as GPS, touch screen, better cameras, waterproof, ect. Though our medical technology has made improvements over the years, most the improvements as of recently haven’t been anything substantial; at least for how much money we put into