Health Care Costs In U.S. Break Spending Record

Houston (dbTechno) - The health-care bill for America broke a record in 2006 as spending for health-care rose above the $2 trillion mark.

This marks an average spending of $7,026 per person, which is a record in itself. The government put out a report detailing these numbers and this incredible amount of health-care spending.

Costs increased by 6.7 percent over the year 2005 which could have attributed to the spending increase. This was only a bit higher than in 2005 though when you actually break down and look at the rates.

The majority of the costs were due to the sickest of patients. 10% of the population accounts for over 60% of the health-care costs.

Ron Pollack of Families USA stated “Many people involved in health care will say, “Hey, wait a minute, 6.7 percent … things are moderating, but for average people … they don’t see this as moderation.”

Medicare paid only 2 percent of the total prescription purchases in the year 2005. In 2006 this grew to 18 percent.

This report is likely to stir up quite a bit of controversy in Washington as many fight to cut costs and insure the 47 million people in the country whom are not insured.