I have found this article almost optimistic. I think it is a good news that only ¼ of all US health spending increase is due to rising disease prevalence. With respitory disease treated prevalence already down (because of effective anti-smoking campaign) and hopefully addressing the biggest, in author’s opinion, contributor to the increased disease prevalence – obesity, the rate of increase in health care spending at least should not go up. The biggest moving force in increasing health care spending is growth in cost per care. Authors mentioned 7 key factors (as in 2008 report by Congressional Budget Office). And only one of them cannot be changed – aging in population. The rest like administrative cost, changes in 3rd party payments, supplier-induced demand all can be addressed with right policies changes and maybe borrowing lessons from other nations. So at least in theory those problems are solvable.
I have found this article almost optimistic. I think it is a good news that only ¼ of all US health spending increase is due to rising disease prevalence. With respitory disease treated prevalence already down (because of effective anti-smoking campaign) and hopefully addressing the biggest, in author’s opinion, contributor to the increased disease prevalence – obesity, the rate of increase in health care spending at least should not go up.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest moving force in increasing health care spending is growth in cost per care. Authors mentioned 7 key factors (as in 2008 report by Congressional Budget Office). And only one of them cannot be changed – aging in population. The rest like administrative cost, changes in 3rd party payments, supplier-induced demand all can be addressed with right policies changes and maybe borrowing lessons from other nations. So at least in theory those problems are solvable.