Example research essay topic: Middle Class Families Health Care Costs - 534 words

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Running Head: Contributors to High Cost of Health Care Contributors to High Cost of Health Care (Authors Name) (Institution Name) Contributors to High Cost of Health Care Technology & Direct Factors The direct rising costs for health care is because of the increased pharmaceutical expenses; high costing new technologies, the aging of population, the increase in consumer demands, service provider consolidation, health care labor pressures etc. While health insurance premiums and medical expenses have dramatically increased since 1998, analysts believe that health premiums will have to be increased even more during the next few years to overcome these rising costs. While the private as well as the public sectors are affected by the rising costs, Medicare cost spending is projected to be at $ 456 billion in 2010 compared to $ 252 billion in 2002. (Health Care Costs: Why Do They Increase? What Can We Do? ) Socio-Economic & Political Factors The past generation has seen the American middle-class family having to work harder to keep itself financially safe and secure because realities have transformed the economic risks at such levels that an error in judgment or for example the disappearing of a spouse can cause a family to be reduced from middle class to a poor family within months. Health Care has become an unaffordable commodity in these circumstances. Rising prices have rocked the middle class families and women from such families have had to enter the workforce in a strategy to break even with two paychecks.

With families facing higher costs and increased risks even a minor miscalculation can create a financial crisis and it has become especially difficult for single mothers to carve out livings in the present fast paced and tough lifestyles and the risk for divorced women with children to file for bankruptcy have increased three fold. In just a single generation mothers have had to go work and thereby transforming the basic economics of a typical middle-class household that can no longer depend on a single earning family member. While the social implications are widely being discussed about these changing lifestyles, not enough attention to it is being given from the economic point of view. The expenditures of families are lesser by 51 percent on major appliances in present time in comparison to the past generation with a full 75 percent of the family's income budgeted for recurring monthly expenses. With middle class families being pushed so much towards the edge it is likely that the resultant financial fallout could have a major impact on the political situation of the country as well. (Elizabeth W, 2004) Conclusion Under the above circumstance, each and every factor of political, social, economic, technological issues combine together to make people dread and avoid the requirement of health care services as much as possible. All these factors play significant roles in increasing the high cost of health care, but perhaps the technological and direct factors make the most impact of these increasing high health care costs.

References: Health Care Costs: Why Do They Increase? What Can We Do? (Accessed: May 31, 2007) web Elizabeth Warren, (2004), The Middle Class on the Precipice, Rising financial risks for American families (Accessed: May 31, 2007) web

Research essay sample on Middle Class Families Health Care Costs