InsurancePlanet shares some
fun health insurance stats in a recent posting:
In 2001, 24 percent of U.S. adults, ages 19 to 64, or 38 million people, were uninsured or had lost their insurance
for a period of time in the previous 12 months. By 2005, that total had risen to 48 million, or 28 percent of that age group,
according to the survey. [...]However, during the last decades of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, employer-sponsored health insurance benefits
have begun to erode, largely because of the escalating costs of health insurance premiums: Real wages have grown 11 percent since
1980, keeping pace with inflation, while real benefit growth has grown 50 percent. By comparison, health insurance premiums
nationally have increased 73 percent over the last five years. Employers and individuals are increasingly being priced out of the
market.
Stats like this highlight one of the bigger problems in the realm of health care in the U.S. these days (and are an issue that
Massachusetts will soon be facing head-on now that health insurance is mandatory there). For various reasons, the cost of
healthcare is spiraling upwards.
There was some brief relief with the introduction of HMO’s and their resultant cost savings/downward pressure, but that relief has
long since been eaten through.
I’m no expert in the matter, but it seems to me that at least part of the problem, at least in the U.S., is that we “have” to have
the latest and greatest treatments and diagnostic routines. It’s great that such advances have been made and such technology is
available…but that availability comes at a price.
Sadly, less costly but still effective technology seems to fall out of favor quickly. Medical professionals don’t want to prescribe
the use of less than state-of-the-art techniques, for fear of malpractice issues. And insured individuals of course want the
latest-and-greatest because they aren’t normally footing the bill.
It seems to me that there should be some sort of check against those concerns.
And meanwhile, I’ll re-mention a gripe I’ve made earlier. I can’t help but wonder if a small, but non-trivial, part of the problem
is with inefficiencies in the billing process at medical facilities. Seeing a hospital bill for charges six months after the fact
seems a little lax to me. Seeing labs send out multiple bills for small dollar amounts from (for example) various tests that a
patient might be undergoing, when in fact a single consolidated bill might be more efficient…well, that just seems to be another
small money-sink right there.