Why do health care costs keep rising?

It is called government control, insurance regulation and even law suits. And as much as people don't want to hear this, Health insurance in of its self is the biggest cause of high health care cost. When people are not responsible for the medical cost they don't monitor or care what the doctor is charging. And there is no government regulation congress can pass that will correct the human factor. To start the ball rolling people will need to monitor the cost as if the money is coming from their own pocket.

JD

The cost of health care rises faster than the economy for several reasons. The biggest one is because of deep pocket laws. Your doctor cuts off the wrong little finger and he/she can be sued for tens of millions in damages, even though the actual damages were trifling. Torte reform would resolve much of that. However, torte reform is unlikely because the democrats are in bed with the trial lawyers.

Interstate competition also would help a little but not as much as some people think. Insurance company profit margins are regulated and monitored by the federal government already so there is little room to drop prices.

Drug prices are another issue because they are high here to support research and development. Other nations pay far lower drug prices while we cover the cost of creating these new wonder drugs. There are some terribly high profits in the drug companies as well so that does need looking at. Once again, the drug companies are in bed with the democrats so it isn't likely to happen any time soon.

The number of physicians is also forced to remain artificially low. That creates a high demand for services. Allowing and encouraging more doctors would greatly reduce medical costs as they would be force to compete.

And lastly, medical research and development is expensive. There is a good reason that we have the highest cancer survival rate in the world. Once we develop a technique, others make use of it but we cover the expense.

Compared to years ago , the resources and testing available to us have increased hundredfold. Technology has increased the capture rate of disease processes by those available tests. They all cost lots of money. Fortunately we do have available to us these tests. The downside is they cost a lot.

The basic idea is that every year , there is more out there to test for with more expensive technology. Forty years ago we would not have had a $3000 blood test to rule out breast cancer genes nor would we have had a CT scan for our brains after head injury which costs plenty. We would have just dropped dead.

SO with the good comes the bad.

The cost of living is going up. The cost of medical procedures is going up. Medical liability lawsuits drive up the cost of healthcare. You are getting older every year.

Why compare it to car and house insurance. Those things are going down in value. Does your life insurance not go up?

Insurance is driven by cost and risk. Health care costs keep going up, and every year you increase in age drives your risk up. No one should ever expect health care premiums to go down. It has never happened.

One major reason is Litigation. Have you seen the size of some of the awards juries hand out? This doesn't even take into account all the non-court settlements reached.

Congress more properly, should have addressed putting limits on medical malpractice awards.

every year, more and more people fall off the insurance rolls and have to pay out of pocket for their health care

most people without money rely on Emergency Rooms for their care, especially in rural areas where there are no 'free clinics', and ER care is the most expensive form of health care there is

and those of us have insurance have to pick up those additional costs in our hospital bills

and insurance companies have to pay those higher costs

and our rates go up

it is called the Death Spiral, and it is killing rural hospitals

I had good auto insurance. The cost was low, and I was happy, but recently it went up. My husband called and ask why, and they said that the cost of living is going up, so they had to increase prices. So I'm guessing that as prices rise for a business, they will offset it by charging us more. This is true for all businesses, health care included.

You think it's going up now, wait till the health care bill is passed and you get an immediate increase but no benefits until '13!! Hope we all love paying for something for 4 years and get nothing in return!

Well, You are getting a year older and generally means you could have more problems. But not near what they rise. That is why it needs monitored, The insurance companies are thieves and the government wants to monitor them. Whether or not they should is another discussion. I have an individual policy and it goes up about 40-60% a year. Thieves i tell you they are thieves!

Ask Ice Twinkles Toes.