Healthcare Case Management the Growth

Healthcare

Case Management

The growth rate in health care spending in the U.S. has been faster than the growth rate in the gross domestic product (GDP), inflation, and population for several years. Between 1940 and 1990, the yearly rate of growth in real health spending per capita increased from 3.6% in the 1960s to 6.5% in the 1990s. Similarly, the share of GDP accounted for by health care spending went up from 4.5% in 1940 to 12.2% in 1990. In 2005 health care spending was nearly $2 trillion, which represents 16% of GDP. The continued growth in health spending over the previous four and half decades is likely to continue, and total spending on health is expected to reach $4 trillion, 20% of GDP, by 2015 (the Effect of Health Care Cost Growth on the U.S. Economy, n.d.).

Health care spending affects the economy in many diverse and complex ways. The effects tend to differ across sectors of the economy and population groups. Experts have noted that although health care spending may impede broad economic growth, it may also stimulate economic growth and prosperity in certain sectors of the economy. Understanding how health care spending affects economic growth requires an evaluation of all of the dimensions. The effects are likely to occur across all sectors of the economy including governments, businesses and households, as all these interconnected sectors play an important role in the provision, financing and consumption of health care in the U.S. (the Effect of Health Care Cost Growth on the U.S. Economy, n.d.).

Rising healthcare spending plays a central role in the financial health of the United States government. The main impact of the increase in the government's share of health care spending is the burden it places upon the citizens to finance the spending. It causes an increase in taxes along with increased long-term borrowing. Increased taxes leads to a reduction in the amount of income that firms and households have for other activities while creating incentives to engage in activities in order to avoid the effects of these increases (the Effect of Health Care Cost Growth on the U.S. Economy, n.d.).

Increased government borrowing in order to finance health care spending growth also has an impact on the availability of resources for other activities. As interest rates go up due to government borrowing, the cost of capital to firms and households also goes up. This leads to less investment in some activities that would otherwise have been undertaken. Increased spending often results in greater transfers of wealth from younger to older segments of the population (Effects of Health Care Spending on the U.S. Economy, 2005).

The goal of every society should be to have a healthy society. This places a duty on the government to protect everyone's health. In the United States, this requires urgent health care reform to end the needless loss of life, health, and well-being of millions of people every year. Even though the current reform plans that are in place are primarily driven by a sense of economic necessity, based on cost concerns they do implicitly share a common understanding of health as a social goal. Where those proposals fall short is in assuming that these shared social and financial goals can be realized with the fragmented, market-based services that are in place today. "Whether it is the systematic denial of coverage and care in the private insurance system, the price-inflated private Medicare plans, the poor results of privatized Medicaid administration, or the costly Massachusetts health reform, in no instance has the market succeeded in providing equitable access to quality care at a cost affordable to individuals and society as a whole" (Ten Health Care Financing Principles to Ensure Universality, Equity, and Accountability, 2009). In reality, as a market good, health care is by definition very exclusionary. It is sold only to those who can pay and is readily exhaustible and depleted by private interests that take their cut from available resources through profit, leaving less for the public as a whole. A society that is inclined to protect both bodily and financial health should require a combined provision of health care on a guaranteed and long-term basis. Health care is treated as a public good that is sold in a marketplace and dominated by private interests, rather than as a commodity (Ten Health Care Financing Principles to Ensure Universality, Equity, and Accountability, 2009).