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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Orcastraiter who wrote (13799)	8/19/2004 4:33:52 PM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 90947

Someday we hope to have reasonable health care insurance. We were quite happy paying for it 10 years ago when the price was more reasonable. I submit that the reasons premiums have gone up as much as they have are 1) sharply rising malpractice insurance costs, driven in turn by our out-of-control tort system, 2) ever larger and more complex claims/payment bureaucracies in both the health care and the insurance industries, and to a lesser extent 3) ever advancing, but expensive, health care technologies. There are proposals for fixing the first problem, but trial lawyers (lobbyists and pols) and their allies have blocked reform. The second, however, presents a bit of a conundrum as administrative costs are driven up by efforts to control health care costs. The third, well, that's the price we pay for longer lives. Before that we both had employer provided insurance. Ahh, you've hit on a basic economic problem. Consumers of health care have been removed from the economic decision-making process and have no real idea of the cost or ability to control it. I'd bet that the VAST majority of people insured through their employer have no idea what the actual premium is that their employer pays. Only when they are self-employed (or on COBRA) do most workers see the real cost and have an interest in making the kind of cost/benefit decision you made. Unfortunately, when you do seek health care, you will likely pay the same inflated-by-admin-costs, subsidizing-indigent-patient prices as the insured world.