Staying in good health should not be a luxury, but rather a common convenience. Having said that, there is a solid chunk of the United States citizens who live their lives in fear of getting sick with no health support available.
Namely, an average American can expect to pay up to $30,000 for a three-day stay at a hospital. These digits apply to those without health insurance and are a pretty massive attack on anyone’s budget.
So what are the government’s appropriations for healthcare and what are some trends in costs we can expect? To get you started, we singled out a few of the most interesting facts regarding these topics. Let’s dive right into it.
Some Intriguing Facts on Healthcare in the US
- American healthcare added up to $3.65 trillion in 2018, which is the combined GDP of Canada and Spain for the same year, showing an increase of as much as 4.4% since 2017.
- Other developed countries spend much less on healthcare and have much higher life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, and suffer from diabetes significantly less than the US citizens.
- In 2018, roughly 30.4 million Americans were not insured for proper healthcare, and some 87 million were ‘underinsured,’ meaning that 10% or more of their household income went to additional health costs.
- About 41.8% of the US children were insured in 2018. To see the bigger picture, roughly 5.2% of all children were uninsured, while 54.7% were insured privately.
With these facts in mind, it comes to almost no surprise that the healthcare industry is the single largest employer in the United States, successfully surpassing retail and manufacturing.
Standard or traditional clinical healthcare is as strong as it has ever been. Still, a rising amount of health workers are people with high school diplomas and additional competency exams, providing personal care and nursing. Of course, with the median salaries of top-paid health workers, such as surgeons, dentists, pharmacists, and many others averaging as much as $208k, it is somewhat easier to understand as to why the expenditures of this industry add up to almost 18% of America’s GDP.
Still, the burning fact is that people spend more than twice as much on healthcare than they used to in the mid-80s. As employer-aided insurance increased by about 5% in 2018, we will likely see this trend going on in the years to come. The eventual ray of hope would be the Medicare For All program, planned by the Democrats Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
There are, however, certain predictions for possible costs of the program, and they do not leave much space for optimism in many people.
The Bottom Line
Even though the statistics on the US healthcare system sound rather grim, there is still a bit to look forward to. As healthcare rose to prominence and became the biggest player in the jobs market, chances are these services will become somewhat more affordable in the future. With the current state of events, Medicare For All could become a reality, giving everyone hope for a longer, healthier life.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
