by Mark G. Sullivan

Created on: January 17, 2010   Last Updated: January 19, 2010

The amount of information available on the health care revolution is staggering. In many cases, if the reader is not an employee of the industry such as with insurance, pharmaceutical, or the local medical provider, it is not possible to understand what is true or more appropriate, accurate.

What we do know to be accurate is government controlled anything does not save the consumer money. Actually, as history has shown, once politicians become involved, a bloated bureaucracy is not far behind. The millions of dollars to fund become billions and soon the cost to consumers is out of control.

Actually, this has already taken place with years of government regulation at both the state and federal level. The idea of managed care was to control costs by limiting patient and physician choices but the results show just the opposite. Cost of care has continued to rise at a breakneck pace.

With employers being the primary provider of insurance are no longer able to shoulder the brunt of these increases has resulted in passing the cost onto the employees. The employees in turn have struggled to make ends meet due to the ever-increasing premium deducted from their paycheck.

In an effort to get these costs under control, some employers have changed their tactics. Instead of maintaining sole responsibility for the management of the company's health care, employees have been empowered with the decision making of how their health care dollars are spent. As a result, the cost of health care to these people has gone down.

When reviewing the results it becomes apparent these new decision makers, the consumers, were better informed about the health care being offered. Questions about their medical conditions and treatment options were asked of the provider that previously would not have been discussed. As a result, in many cases, the employee changed to a healthier lifestyle resulting in not only fewer visits to the doctor, but also lower drug costs.

Unfortunately, this type of consumer-managed care has been slow to be adopted throughout the industry primarily due to insurance and governmental regulations. However, there is no denying the fact that when consumers are in charge of their dollars the cost of any purchase is evaluated while striving for the best quality. That in itself creates competition while lowering costs.

This type of scenario will be repeated throughout our country when our elected officials get out of the way and allow the consumer to control their own health care. In the end, the single payer system touted by government can only reduce costs when that payer is the consumer.

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