Tag: inflation

Inflation and money woes are forcing Americans to delay medical care : Shots

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Substitute teacher Crystal Clyburn, 51, doesn’t have health insurance. She got her blood pressure checked at a health fair in Sarasota, Fla.

Stephanie Colombini/WUSF


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Stephanie Colombini/WUSF

Substitute teacher Crystal Clyburn, 51, doesn’t have health insurance. She got her blood pressure checked at a health fair in Sarasota, Fla.

Stephanie Colombini/WUSF

At a health-screening event in Sarasota, Florida, people milled around a parking lot waiting their turn for blood pressure or diabetes checks. The event was held in Sarasota’s Newtown neighborhood, a historically Black community.

Local resident Tracy Green, 54, joined the line outside a pink and white bus offering free mammograms.

“It’s a blessing, because some people, like me, are not fortunate and so this is what I needed,” she said.

Green said she wanted the exam because cancer runs in her family. And there’s another health concern: her breasts are large and cause her severe back pain. A doctor once recommended she get reduction surgery, she said, but she’s uninsured and can’t afford it.

In a recent Gallup poll, 38% of Americans surveyed said they had put off medical treatment last year due to cost, up from 26% in 2021. The new figure is the highest since Gallup started tracking the issue in 2001.

A survey by The Kaiser Family Foundation last summer showed similar results. It found people were most likely to delay dental care, followed by vision services and doctor’s office visits. Many didn’t take medications as prescribed.

The health screening event is part of an ongoing effort provide health services to low-income Floridians who are uninsured. Attendees could have their blood pressure checked or receive screenings for diabetes. A bus also delivered mammogram services.

Stephanie Colombini/WUSF


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Stephanie Colombini/WUSF

The health screening event is part of an ongoing effort provide health services to low-income Floridians who are uninsured. Attendees could have their blood pressure checked or receive screenings for diabetes. A bus also delivered mammogram services.

Stephanie Colombini/WUSF

The neighborhood screening event in Newtown — organized by the non-profit Multicultural Health Institute in partnership with a local hospital and other health groups — is part of an effort to fill in the coverage gap for low-income people.

Tracy Green explained that her teeth are in bad shape too, but dental care will also have to wait. She doesn’t have health insurance or a stable job. When she

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Transformative impact of inflation on the healthcare sector

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The once-in-a-century pandemic thrust the healthcare industry into the teeth of the storm. The combination of accelerating affordability challenges, access issues exacerbated by clinical-staff shortages and COVID-19, and limited population-wide progress on outcomes is ominous. This gathering storm has the potential to reorder the healthcare industry and put nearly half of the profit pools at risk. Those who thrive will tap into the $1 trillion of improvement available by redesigning their organizations for speed-accelerating productivity improvements, reshaping their portfolio, innovating new business models to refashion care, and reallocating constrained resources. The healthcare industry has lagged behind other industries in applying these practices; players who are able to do so in this crisis could set themselves up for success in the coming years. This article is the second in our five-article series addressing the gathering storm.

Consumer prices have rarely risen faster than healthcare inflation, but that’s the situation today. The impact of inflation on the broader economy has driven up input costs in healthcare significantly. Moreover, the likelihood of continued labor shortages in healthcare—even as demand for services continues to rise—means that higher inflation could persist. Our latest analysis estimates that the annual US national health expenditure is likely to be $370 billion higher by 2027 due to the impact of inflation compared with prepandemic projections.

Pressure on healthcare input costs

Healthcare supply input costs spiked in late 2020 and 2021 during the COVID-19 crisis. Labor costs per adjusted hospital discharge grew 25 percent between 2019 and 2022, closely followed by pharmaceuticals at 21 percent, supplies at 18 percent, and services at 16 percent.


While these costs have moderated in 2022, they continue to be above the norm; in particular, growth in labor cost remains high.

Clinical labor

The worsening clinical labor shortage is a significant contributor to our projected increase in healthcare costs over the next five years. By 2025, we expect a gap of 200,000 to 450,000 registered nurses and 50,000 to 80,000 doctors (10 to 20 percent and 6 to 10 percent of the workforce, respectively).


These shortages underpin our estimate that healthcare labor cost growth will outpace inflation. We expect clinical labor cost growth of 6 to 10 percent over the next two years, about three to seven percentage points above the prevailing rate of inflation, before a correction to

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Shares fall sharply as Target’s woes renew inflation fears | Countrywide Information

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NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Typical sank additional than 1,100 points and the S&P 500 had its largest fall in just about two years Wednesday, as major earnings misses by Target and other important merchants stoked investors’ fears that surging inflation could slice deeply into corporate income.

The broad sell-off erased gains from a solid rally a working day previously, the latest risky day-to-day swing for shares in latest weeks amid a deepening market place slump.

The S&P 500 tumbled 4%, its sharpest drop considering that June 2020. The benchmark index is now down a lot more than 18% from the history high it attained at the beginning of the calendar year. That is shy of the 20% drop that’s deemed a bear market place.

The Dow dropped 3.6%, although the Nasdaq fell 4.7%. The three indexes are on speed to increase a string of at the very least 6 weekly losses.

“A great deal of individuals are attempting to guess the base,” said Sam Stovall, main financial commitment strategist at CFRA. “Bottoms happen when there’s nobody remaining to promote.”

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The S&P 500 fell 165.17 points to 3,923.68, although the Dow slid 1,164.52 points to 31,490.07. The Nasdaq slid 566.37 details to 11,418.15.

Scaled-down firm stocks also fell sharply. The Russell 2000 fell 65.45 factors, or 3.6%, to 1,774.85.

Vendors have been among the biggest decliners Wednesday right after Concentrate on plunged adhering to a grim quarterly earnings report.

Goal misplaced a quarter of its value just after reporting earnings that fell much quick of analysts’ forecasts. In a indication of the effects of inflation, specifically on shipping and delivery charges, Focus on said its running margin for the first quarter was 5.3%. It experienced been expecting 8% or better. The business also claimed shoppers returned to extra normal expending practices, switching absent from TVs and appliances and purchasing far more toys and travel-similar goods.

The report comes a working day right after Walmart reported its earnings took a hit from increased fees. The nation’s most significant retailer fell 6.8%, incorporating to its losses from Tuesday.

The weak reviews stoked issues that persistently climbing inflation is placing a tighter squeeze on a extensive assortment of corporations and could slice deeper into their revenue.

“These merchants are owning to harmony how

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Climbing US inflation charge could drive up well being treatment costs in 2022

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Inflation is on the rise, driving up the cost of gas and food stuff. One sector of the US economic system is behaving especially strangely: For after, professional medical costs have been expanding at a noticeably reduce price than price ranges in the general economic system.

In Oct 2021, according to the nonprofit well being treatment assessment group Altarum, charges for overall health treatment providers rose at a 2 per cent level year-about-12 months, in comparison to a 6.2 per cent rate for all buyer merchandise.

But a sharp rise in medical rates could continue to be about the corner, industry experts say, delayed only because of exceptional attributes of the health and fitness care marketplace.

Above the last 30 many years, customer prices have nearly by no means risen more rapidly than medical inflation, which measures the change in the costs paid for clinical expert services, almost everything from doctor’s visits to surgeries to prescription prescription drugs. If anything, the opposite has been true, notably in the course of financial downturns following the 2008 fiscal disaster, for case in point, in general inflation slowed down to practically practically nothing but health-related selling prices continued to grow at a 2 to 3 % rate.

In reality, since 2010, selling prices in the over-all financial system and in wellness care have moved much more or fewer in tandem — until finally the spring of 2020.

Altarum

But even though that may make it sound as nevertheless the well being care sector is savoring a welcome respite from the general inflation developing so a lot nervousness among firms and political leaders, the actuality appears much less reassuring. This comparatively sluggish progress in healthcare prices could be a mirage. And if health care inflation does eventually capture up with the broader overall economy, people would mainly be the ones shelling out for it.

Why healthcare inflation could accelerate quickly

The exact same complications driving up rates in the rest of the economy — soaring prices in just the provide chain, issues obtaining personnel for open work opportunities — are challenges in the well being treatment sector too. The workforce disaster in particular is acute and not likely to go away any time shortly, presented how lots of nurses and medical professionals have remaining their positions throughout the pandemic.

A the latest survey from the Chartis Group identified that 99 percent of rural

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