I hope your insurance premium is not costing more than your mortgage.
Medical costs seem so outrageous that no one can afford them without insurance—but what if the reason they are unaffordable is because of insurance?
The graph shows the effect that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had on insurers’ profits.
It should be obvious that for low-cost services, it costs more to process the claim than to buy the service. So, “comprehensive” insurance makes no sense. Except to managed-care companies (“insurers”).
Since ACA was enacted, we have seen no reports on improved health outcomes or better access to needed care—quite the contrary.
People should be asking how much care they could buy for what they pay the insurer every month for care they don’t get. Perhaps care should be priced in fractions or multiples of monthly premiums. The price range for the same procedure is shocking—perhaps ten-fold.
Surgery Center of Oklahoma took the revolutionary step of posting prices online. If more places did that, massive cost savings could occur—at the expense of bureaucracy.
What about the poor? Medicaid is the cash cow for managed care. Are poor patients on the whole getting better care than before? Would it be better to pay for their care directly instead of through the managed-care bureaucracy?
With a change in Administration, should we be looking at giving people choices to escape or bypass ACA instead of doing more of the same?
Additional Information:
- The Role of Third-Party Payers in Medical Cost Increases
- Single Payer IQ Test – Question 6: How would the single payer control costs?
- The Medicaid Trap
- White Paper: After the Affordable Care Act: Freedom for All vs. Medicare for All
