Annual Per Capita Healthcare Costs By Age Essay

The United States has way higher(prenominal) health care cost than either other country in the OECD, more or lessly which is because of the extremely high expenses later in aliveness. 17 cents of every US dollar is being fatigued on health care. At somewhat come on 60, healthcare expenses for US citizens skyrocket, averaging between $40,000 to $45,000 a year per person, which is way above Germany, who has the next highest with only about $10,000.Dr. Ficshbeck, an engineering professor who runs a website call(a)ed deathriskrankings.com, says the high costs are not completely without some reward. He said when it comes to deaths caused by disease, custody from the US consecrate a option advantage over men from western Europe starting around age 65 that steadily increments over time. American women nurture this same advantage starting around age 80. This think ups if Americans died from diseases at the same rate as people from the Netherlands, for example, on that point woul d be about 60,000 more male deaths and 14,000 more female deaths in the US, all after the age of 70. France is among the few exceptions because they have a lower death rate from disease, but for the most part, the United States has a lower rate of diseased-caused deaths than Western Europe.Dr. Ficshbecks research also shows evidence that Americans have a higher death rate during young adulthood and middle age mainly delinquent to health. Obesity rates, which are one of the leading causes of type 2 diabetes, are 3 times higher in America than France, and more than twice as high as in Germany. This study could mean that American healthcare is not totally at fault for not producing better results, but the American people themselves should be to blame for not making better health choices earlier in there lives. Ficshbeck believes that the edge the United States is getting in the latter years are referable to our superior cover version and treatment of diseases, the most prominent one being cancer. Americans have an average 5 year survival rate for breast cancer. This is higher than any other country in the OECD.Although Americans have a infinitesimal advantage when it comes to death rates caused by disease for people over the age of 70, it isnt a big enough advantage to prove that all of the money we spend on older Americans healthcare is providing that a good deal of a survival advantage. A Boston University economist by the look up of Dr. Lawrence Kotlikoff believes that the problem with our healthcare over expending problem stems from Medicare. He says the system has no cost concord, and that pretty much any services that hospitals or touch ons provide, Medicare will pay for. He has a very interesting idea for an resource system that will provide incentive for practicing healthy habits (which the lack of proves to be one of main reasons for our not-so-superior life expectancy rates) and also lower US healthcare spending. He advocates issuing everybody vouchers through health policy companies that would vary in value depending on the receivers health status, kind of like how car insurance companies are run.This sounds like a great alternative in that it would give people a good reason to be healthy which, in turn, would lead to less money being spent on expensive tests and procedures. Robert Martensen, director of the office history at the National Institutes of Health is skeptical of how much of the United States health care spending is actually going towards increasing lifespan. He says that 40 to 50 percent of Medicare is being spent on intensive care which may not necessarily increase their chances of survival. European countries spend a lot less after the age of 65 mainly due to the fact that they have a lot more general practitioners, fewer specialists, and more centralized control over the number of hospital beds.Another researcher, named Dr. Jonathan Skinner, believes that although the US may be spending too much on older peoples health care, Europeans may also be doing too little. Having a specialist for every organ in the body of a patient with a chronic disease is a big part of the reason Americans are overspending. A payment technique called bundling could be a solution to this problem. It suggests that doctors and hospitals be paid a set amount for each patient diagnosis, much(prenominal) as diabetes or heart failure, and then have the ability to be rewarded with additional payments for meeting reliable standards for quality care.This will give the doctors more control on what they should be spending their money on, so if they deem it unnecessary, they wont have to waste money on specialized care for a patient. The problem with bundling and the reason many physicians are against the idea, is that a doctor cant endlessly know ahead of time if they shouldnt spend money on a patient. Although the US is spending way too much on Medicare, thats not a decision any doctor wants to be in control of .