Health Care Costs in the United States on the Access to Care

Total U.S. Spending on Health Care vs. Overall Health in America

The United States spends an extraordinary amount of money on health care. In 2009, health spending was $2.47 trillion dollars and accounted for 17.3% of the U.S. economy in 2009 (Pickert, 2010). This was a significant increase over the 2008 figure of $2.34 trillion and "was the largest one-year jump since 1960" (Pickert, 2010). This has led to predictions that by 2019, U.S. health spending will be $4.5 trillion (Pickert, 2010). Much of this spending is government spending. Approximately one-fifth of the federal budget in 2009 went to health-care spending. That year, the "federal government spent about $500 billion on Medicare; the federal government and states spent some $380 billion on Medicaid" (Pickert). However, while U.S. health care spending has risen, the quality of health care in...
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