Health Care Affordability: How to Make It a Reality.
Health care is a big business. US health care expenditures reached $2.9 trillion in 2013. Patient spending accounted for 28% of the total, which means patients spent approximately $810 billion in 2013 for insurance premiums, deductibles, copays, coinsurance, and noncovered health care services. How are patients expected to pay almost a trillion dollars in health care expenses? There is a need to find a health care financing methodology that will make health care affordable for all patients and families. An alternative method for funding health care is discussed that includes creating a government-funded annuity during the first decade of one's life. When this annuity matures later in life, many individuals will have amassed a large pot of money with which to pay for their (and their family's) health care treatment and products.
Author Affiliations: Department of Health Management and Informatics, College of Health and Public Affairs, University of Central Florida, Orlando.
Timothy
T
Rotarius
Aaron
A
Liberman
D005102:Health Expenditures; D006297:Health Services Accessibility / Q000191:economics*; D006801:Humans; D014481:United States