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It is a daunting task today to understand how your health care costs relate to the health care you expect to

receive and the health care you actually receive. You must spend time learning about your health care plan

before it has to be used.

http://www.chcf.org/topics/vie w.cfm?itemID=115327

You can download documents to help answer many of your questions.

The number of people who have no health insurance today is a contributing factor to the expensive cost of health insurance. Health insurance costs have been increasing right along with the increase in the number of emergency room walk in-patients. The hospitals simply increase the amount of the charges for the person who has health insurance, be it private or government insurance. Hospitals have to recover their costs and the person with insurance pays the extra costs. http://emergency-room-nurse.bl ogspot.com/2008/05/that-tooth- ache-will-cost-you-150-up.html

When you are young you feel invincible why have health insurance? Millions of young people live without insurance protection. Many will still end up using the health care system and the cost gets passed on to somebody else. http://health.usnews.com/artic les/health/healthday/2008/05/3 0/more-young-people-going-with out-health-insurance.html

"Most Americans have health insurance through their employers. But, employment is no longer a guarantee of having insurance coverage".

http://www.nchc.org/facts/cove rage.shtml

Many people no longer take advantage of health insurance programs provided by their employer, because of the cost. Employers have had to increase the amount of out of pocket costs for the employees. The insurance company pass their growing costs down to the employer.

Millions of new people every day qualify for Medicaid insurance because they have low or no income. The federal government helps the states pay the Medicaid costs that are rising at a rate that is out of control. The states pay Medicaid costs for people who qualify and those people end up with only a very small or no out of pocket expense for their health care. The requirements to qualify for Medicaid can be worked around allowing people to use Medicaid who should not be in the program.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w ashington/2005-08-01-medicaid_ x.htm

Medicare patients like everyone with employer backed or private insurance have a higher out of pocket cost each year to pay for their health care. Medicare also keeps lowering the amount that the government Medicare system pays to the hospitals for the care given to Medicare patients. Hospitals receive payments from the government on a fee basis for Medicare and Medicaid patients care. The hospitals again charge more to the patients with private insurance when the government payments don't cover the costs for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

Malpractice lawsuits cause health insurance costs to increase. Doctors pay huge amounts for malpractice insurance and pass some of that cost to their patients. General practice has turned into a variety of specialty clinics. Medical equipment and supply costs increase every day.

The billing procedures that are mostly done today on paper cost far more than electronic billing. Young people have babies today and stay single so the state will pay the medical costs for their children. Millions of people live on junk food, creating unnecessary costly health issues. These are all reasons for the high cost of health insurance but the main reason is that not enough people are paying into the system. More people are exchanging their regular medical coverage for policies with huge deductibles to get affordable premiums. We have almost reached the point where the people with private health insurance and the taxpayer will not be able to pay for the cost of health care for the rest of the population.

Learn more about this author, L G Hoel.
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