Ten things every American should know about health care costs

Here’s some food for thought. 

1. In 2006 the total cost of healthcare in America was $2105.5 billion. That’s an average of $7018.33 for every man, woman, and child living in America today.
2. The three largest components of this total cost were: (a) hospitals, at 30 per cent or $604.7 billion; (b) doctors’ offices, at 21 percent or $442.2 billion; and (c) retail prescription drug costs (i.e., prescription drugs purchased at pharmacies) at 10 percent or $210.6 billion.
3. If you had to pay cash for your prescription drugs, the average cost per prescription in 2006 would have been about $75.00 (less than the cost of two tankfuls of gas for your car today).
4. We tend to think drugs are expensive, but there’s nothing new about this. In the early 1930s the cost of a gram of penicillin (which might have cured your child of pneumonia) was about $25,000. Today penicillin costs a few cents a gram. New drugs are often expensive. Later on they may be much cheaper. It’s just like a lot of other things. Flat screen TVs were a lot more expensive 5 years ago than they are today too!
5.  Don’t think cost. Think value. What is your doctor’s time or a specific drug worth to you? Does a drug keep you alive when nothing else will? Then it’s probably worth a lot! On the other hand, if it just makes your hair grow a little more, you can probably live without it (so long as your vanity will let you).
6. Generic drugs are less expensive in America than they are in almost every other country in the Western world. Why? Simple: it’s a very competitive market. Generic drug makers will fight for every penny, which keeps costs down.
7. About 90 percent of Medicare patients now have decent oral drug coverage and pay between $10.00 and $25.00 as a co-pay for most of the prescriptions they need. In 1996, only 69 percent of Medicare patients had drug coverage that was even close to being that good.
8. If you are having a problem paying the costs for a drug you need, don’t give up. Every single major pharmaceutical has programs designed to help most people like you. They may not be perfect, but they really can help. See the Partnership for Prescription Assistance.
9. Some drugs really are very expensive. If you are unlucky enough to have a genetically inherited disorder called Gaucher disease, in which you are missing a critical enzyme that is needed to keep you alive, it may cost you anywhere from $200,000 to $600,000 a year to pay for Cerezyme, a replacement for the missing enzyme. So what is a life worth? And now how do you feel about the cost of the drugs you may need if you thought paying $20 or $30 was expensive for a drug to keep your heart working well?
10. If you lived in most of the world (as opposed to America) you might not even have the chance to make choices like this. We are a wasteful society. We take drugs we don’t need. Most of us eat more food than we need. We live in houses that would amaze our great grandparents. And then we complain that everything is expensive!