In 2006, the United States Census reported that 46 million Americans have no health insurance, which includes 9 million children who are lacking. The sad truth is that over 18,000 people will die each year because they are uninsured. Even with all of this, United States health care spending is an astounding $2 trillion each year, or roughly $6,700 per person. The nation continues to spend significantly more on health care than any other countries in the world.



Yet Americans are still lacking proper health care and the funds to pay associated bills. The surprising fact of the matter is - three-quarters of all bankruptcies in the nation, half of which are caused by medical bills, are people who do have health insurance coverage.

So what is being done about it? During Bill Clinton's presidency, he promised to do something about rising health care costs in the nation. The reform, which appeared good at first, soon ran aground due to the combination of factors - the unwillingness of other politicians to confront the insurance and other lobbies; and the general distraction of the nation with the war, economy, and global terrorism.

There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members of Congress, but medical costs continue to rise rapidly. Health care is nonetheless forced back into political prominence. The problems associated with the crisis and high healthcare costs include the problem of increasingly rapid unraveling of employer-based health insurance; the plight of Medicaid; and the ever-continuous problem of the federal government's solvency.

Even with all these problems, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The United States does now know more about the economics of healthcare than it did during Clinton's presidency when he tried and failed to remake the system. There is an increasing body of evidence on what works and what does not work in healthcare, and information on making dramatic improvements in the nation for healthcare is available.

In regards to today's physicians, there are viable solutions to the healthcare crisis as well. These solutions include the following:

1.Physicians need to educate themselves by learning the "business" of medicine with "niche" marketing and "niche" medical practices before it is too late.

2.Physicians need to think "outside the box" and become more entrepreneurial and less dependent on private and government subsidized insurance plans (i.e. Medicare, Medicaid.)

3.Physicians need to learn how to decrease their overhead and increase their profit potential. A medical practice is no different than any other business, the cost of doing business goes up and reimbursement goes down and competition increases.

4.Physicians need to treat a medical practice like a business and accept cash!