Health Economics and Financing - Coursework Example

In 1960, the government spent $4553 million on health insurance while the private sector accounted for $1855 million as expenditure. The level of expenditure increased year by year and for 2012, the level of government spending on healthcare was $770,087 million. The private sector expenditure was $29,761 million for the same period. The governments (federal, state and local) are the biggest investors in healthcare in the United States. The data in the tables indicate that the government spends the highest amount of funds in paying for healthcare.

This means that the governments are the biggest sponsors of the healthcare than the private sector. The government paid more for healthcare than the private sector (Mooney, 2003). The private sector plays an essential role in the healthcare expenditure. In essence, though the government in the United States is more involved and pays the biggest role in paying for healthcare, the private sector plays a major role in the same. The government alone cannot satisfy all the healthcare needs of the citizens and therefore the private sector comes in to provide and help the government in paying for healthcare.

The trends for prescription drugs indicate a decreasing trend as compared to that of for hospitals. Comparing year 2011 and 2012, the prescription drug spending slowed down. It grew by 0.4 percent only in 2012 as compared to the previous 2.5 percent growth in 2011. The rate of use of prescription drug reduced and people preferred hospitals prescriptions. This indicates a growing confidence in hospital services and increased use of hospital services by the citizens (Cutler, 2003). The slow in the trend of prescription drug is an opposite of the previous years where citizens preferred the prescription drugs than for hospitals.

With the increased government payment of healthcare, citizens now prefer hospitals than drug prescription. In these data, the