Health care costs have gone from about 27 billion a year in our country to over 3 TRILLION a year currently. You can't attribute that to the profits of health insurance companies. That accounts for much less than 15% of the total as you can see below. So what is driving this, and what can be done about it?

https://www.ahip.org/health-care-dollar/

Profits may be capped at 15%, but prices have been rising steadily for decades now, and let's face it that 15% is based on total costs so that figure has gone up too. Like any business they have expanded services and products to create additional revenue streams. Most of those services in your graph didn't exist or were never as expensive as they are now.

I did not say profits are capped. The problem is how did we get from 27 billion to 3 trillion in only 60 or so years? That means our spending is over 100 times greater than it was. I know inflation will account for some of that, but not even close to being most of it. I do know it cannot continue.

I will say it in the simplest terms I can for a very complex issue ….Health care is a market .But we refuse to look at it that way . The answer of course is competition in a transparent market place and informed consumers .There is of course a place for regulation .But it doesn't include 50 separate governing bodies where a consumer has to purchase coverage in their own state and governed by state mandates on coverage .Consumers should have a choice . If I don't want lactation coverage for me then I should have that option.

Obamacare was structured perfectly by design for failure ;and the beautiful thing about it in the designers eyes is that the government that designed it will never get the blame for it's ultimate failure . Then the left will say (and you are hearing it already ) "we tried a regulated Public/Private Cooperation and it did not work so we should go to full government managed health care .

I could get into other things like ;why doctors have to put so much overhead into non-care clerical work ;why when a segment of the market is permitted to perform as a free market the costs of service drops . etc etc .;but 3 AM comes early . Good night .

Let us just call s spade a spade the medical profession are avariscious b@stards, pharma are avariscious b@stards and insurers are avariscious b@stards

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Originally Posted by paraclete

Let us just call s spade a spade the medical profession are avariscious b@stards, pharma are avariscious b@stards and insurers are avariscious b@stards

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That is a very simple and accurate description. However it's an integral part of the capitalists creed. MO'MONEY!

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Let us just call s spade a spade the medical profession are avariscious b@stards, pharma are avariscious b@stards and insurers are avariscious b@stards.

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So everyone back in the 60's were all saints? I doubt that.

So why do you think those costs are rising so fast?

not quite . I would get rid of mandated insurance in favor of a direct customer -provider relationship in a fee for service arrangement . Big Parma ;Big Health Insurance became monopolies because of the rent seeker arrangements they have with state and national governments .I guess if you want to include Big Hospitals into the mix I couldn't argue .

However the recent rise in the costs can be traced to Obamacare making services less profitable . YEAH THAT's RIGHT PROFITS !!!!!

Insurers are dropping out of the market all together or making up for the loss with increased premiums . The cause is Obamacare, which imposed huge costs to insurers via federal mandates and by expanding the administrative and regulatory apparatus. That is why insurers raise premiums ;drug makers charge more ,doctors and hospitals charge more . 43 % of doctors cannot afford to take on new Medicaid patients .Average waiting times to see primary care physicians is rising to the 3 week level .As Washington keeps expanding the federal bureaucracy, more healthcare dollars are diverted from care to administration and regulatory compliance making fewer dollars available to patient care .

Then I was right. It's the old capitalist MO"MONEY thing that no matter what you do capitalists seek to increase profits. I know the repubs can blame Obama care, but for sure NOBODY wants to go back to the way it was. That should tell you something. The structure and theory is sound, and always has been since the Heritage foundation came up with it, and Romney adopted it. So the hollering is about politics, and the costs/prices is strictly good old fashion free markets.

Capitalists take no prisoners.

capitalistism doesn't survive by costing it's products above the consumer's ability to pay for it . If there is cronyism between the providers and the government then it is NOT a capitalist system . It is crony socialism. Conservative and even most of the Republicans opposed the Heritage plan as put into legislation (the HEART PLAN) by

Sen. John Chafee of RI .

The Chafee bill never came up for a vote. Republicans and Conservatives opposed it in the 90s ;and opposed it when the emperor did a c/p version of it to lie and call it a Republican plan.
Now I read the Heritage ideas and there are some major differences .
1. The so called mandate in the Heritage proposal

was not intended to push people to obtain protection for their own good, but to protect others. Like auto damage liability insurance it focused on catastrophic care insurance so hospitals and taxpayers would not have to foot the bill for the expensive illness or accident of someone who did not buy insurance.
2.They used a carrot .Obamacare used a stick . There were

health credit or voucher to induce people to obtain the catastrophic insurance .
3.The "mandate" was not a mandate .It was the loss of certain tax breaks .
4.The Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional and I don't care if John Roberts twisted the meaning of words to find a reason to make the law constitutional .
5.Had the emperor actually proposed the Heritage plan the left would've revolted . The Heritage plan would've reduced the role of the government ….not make an attempt by the government to take control of a good portion of the American economy.
Now the claim that Obamacare is similar to the plan passed in Massachusetts by a super majority legislature and signed reluctantly by Romney (after 8 vetoes )would be true .

You go into Walmart, the products have prices on them. Go on a car lot, the cars have prices on them. Go to Amazon, the products have prices on them. Go to the doctor, and nothing has a price on it. Prices are posted... nowhere. That's because most people don't care since they count on insurance to pay for most of it. So should it be surprising that health costs have gone up? There is no one who is paying attention.

I'll relate a story. I went in to a facility to have minor surgery done on a finger. Took about thirty minutes. When I got the bill, they had charged 5,000 for the surgical room. Bear in mind that the surgery was on a FINGER. But the insurance company then told them that they could only charge 650. How do you go from 5,000 to accepting 650? Plainly, something strange is up. There is very little competition and very little incentive to hold prices down. After all, no one asks. How many of you ask how much a doctor's visit costs?

I don't ask, but my eyes pop when I get a statement from my insurance carrier. They have a line that says "You may be billed...X" in the last column. They're usually right. Fire the middle man! Medicare for ALL! I heard there are plenty of jobs... two if you need them!

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Fire the middle man! Medicare for ALL!

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Yes. That makes a lot of sense. Get rid of the insurance middle man, and replace it with the federal government middle man. That would be the same fed gvmt that is currently heading towards 22 trillion in debt. You'll pardon me if I'm skeptical of your idea.

Besides all of that, it still doesn't solve the problem of run away prices.

China would be glad to buy more savings bonds if the dufus quit spitting at them. Interest rates are climbing you know.

let's see now Medicare will go insolvent by some projections as early as 2026. That is with only geezers

who have paid into the system their whole working life

being eligible . So what you propose is that everyone from birth should be on the plan ?

Really you sound like

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...how do you pay for it ?

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/...n-sotu-vpx.cnn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAtiWQR_FYY

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Really you sound like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez...how do you pay for it ?

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Not thinking about how to pay for things is what has us in the mess we're in now. These glib, mindless ideas like letting Medicare pay for all healthcare imagines that Medicare has a money tree in the backyard. There is no one on earth more inefficient than our wonderful federal government.

Nancy will school her good, and consider that no other nations pays what we pay for heath care. WHY?

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WHY?

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Great question.

What are you carping when the answer is obvious, a single payer system, administered not for profit