Health Care In United States Reaches One Trillion Mark

On February 7, 2001 the US Census Bureau released figures that show just how expensive treating sickness in the US really is. According to a Census Bureau report, health care industry revenues hit $1.01 trillion in 1999, up 4.3 percent from the previous year. According to the report hospitals received $413 billion, while physicians' offices got $202 billion.

According to the July 26th 2000 online issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), and in the Aug. 28, 2000 issue of the American Medical News, the United States spends 13.7% of its gross domestic product on medical care. The amount of money listed above would make you think that we should have the best health care system, and the healthiest nation in the world. However, according to the recently released report from the World Health Organization, the US ranked 37th in overall health system performance on the WHO list of 191 member nations.

In 1999 Chiropractic offices nationwide received $8.3 billion which represents a 5.1 percent increase over the previous year. When you do the math, Chiropractors are a very small financial part of the total health care costs compared to the medical expenses. Even though estimates say that chiropractors see from between 11 and 17% of the population in the US, the amount of money spent on chiropractic represents only 0.75% (less than one percent) of the total health care costs.