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Hey man! You forgot the fact that despite the push to fix insurance, the price of pharmaceuticals won't be pushed down anytime soon. Since the cost of health c

Hey man! You forgot the fact that despite the push to fix insurance, the price of pharmaceuticals won't be pushed down anytime soon. Since the cost of health care has much more to do with the drugs than what hospitals/doctors charge, but nobody likes it when that is mentioned. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/08lobby.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/08/us/08lobby.html If anybody can find a relatively recent estimation of how much our medicare obligation is pharmaceutical spending, I'd love to see it.

ippisl 14y ago
According to [1] we spend only 16% on drugs and devices. Maybe they didn't include meds you get at a hospital but still it seem that medical services take a big share of the cost. Also, assuming technology can give better treatments , it can lower the drugs needed and their costs. [1]http://www.examiner.com/article/health-care-reform-historical-trends-rising-health-care-costs http://www.examiner.com/article/health-care-reform-historica...
malay 14y ago
Pharmaceuticals represent approximately 10% of total health care expenditures versus hospital, physician and clinical services representing approximately 51% of total health care expenditures (for the latest estimated year of spending, 2010) [1]. Within Medicare, prescription drugs account for 11% of total Medicare expenditures and are projected to be 13.5% of total expenditures by 2021 [1]. Further, the prescription drug benefit ("Part D") has cost about 30% less than estimated by the CBO when the Medicare Modernization Act was passed (2003) [2]. This is due to a variety of factors, but a huge one has been lower-than-expected growth rates in per capita spending on prescription drugs, estimated at 4% per year since 2006 [2], much lower than overall growth in health spending. [1] http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/Proj2011PDF.pdf http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Stat... [2] http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8308.pdf http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8308.pdf

ippisl 14y ago

According to [1] we spend only 16% on drugs and devices. Maybe they didn't include meds you get at a hospital but still it seem that medical services take a big share of the cost. Also, assuming technology can give better treatments , it can lower the drugs needed and their costs. [1]http://www.examiner.com/article/health-care-reform-historical-trends-rising-health-care-costs http://www.examiner.com/article/health-care-reform-historica...

malay 14y ago

Pharmaceuticals represent approximately 10% of total health care expenditures versus hospital, physician and clinical services representing approximately 51% of total health care expenditures (for the latest estimated year of spending, 2010) [1]. Within Medicare, prescription drugs account for 11% of total Medicare expenditures and are projected to be 13.5% of total expenditures by 2021 [1]. Further, the prescription drug benefit ("Part D") has cost about 30% less than estimated by the CBO when the Medicare Modernization Act was passed (2003) [2]. This is due to a variety of factors, but a huge one has been lower-than-expected growth rates in per capita spending on prescription drugs, estimated at 4% per year since 2006 [2], much lower than overall growth in health spending. [1] http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/Proj2011PDF.pdf http://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Stat... [2] http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8308.pdf http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8308.pdf