Medical Costs Keep Rising

Health spending increased 6.7% in 2006, it's now 16.1% of America's Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Medicare spending increased at the fastest pace in 25 years fueled by the new drug benefit last year, it rose nearly 19% to $401.3 billion.

Spending on prescription drugs rose 8.5%. The only bit of good news is that generic drug sales increased to 63% of all drugs sold in the U.S. last year compared with 56% in 2005.

At some point complementary and alternative medicine is going to become more popular simply due to financial necessity.