It is well known that Obamacare has resulted in accelerated increases in health costs. An interesting recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal entitled “The Deception Behind Those In-Network Health ‘Discounts” explains how a little known provision of Obamacare incentivizes insurers to raise costs even more. The essential problem is easy to understand. It is simply that insurers make ever more money when health costs rise because they just pass the increased costs on to their enrolled insures, and keep a percentage of the premiums that these clients-patients pay. The higher the costs the more the insurance companies keep.
What’s the answer? simple. Restore health “insurance” to what it used to be and should be, catastrophic coverage for rare serious events. This is the definition of what insurance really is whether it’s fire insurance, car insurance, flood insurance or health insurance. In this way consumers save tremendous amounts of money on the reduced premiums and use it to pay their routine bills and have an incentive to shop around to keep costs down. This has many other benefits. First and foremost it eliminates “authorizations” and “referrals” for every little health service. This makes your doctor visits quicker and easier, and it allows doctors to need less staff – since most of the staff time in medical offices today is spent not on caring for patients but on dealing with insurance company paperwork. Less staff means lower costs which can be passed on to patients.
There is a trend to “direct” patient to doctor care without insurance. The growth of this trend is the only hope that exists to provide quality care at affordable prices.
