Take Two Premiums and Call Me in the Morning…
By: Ron E. Peck, Esq.
A friend and ally in the health benefits industry recently asked me if I had an up to date listing of the most costly health care expenses paid by health plans in 2018. I didn’t; so on a whim I brought up my handy dandy search engine and typed in: “the most costly health care expenses paid by health plans in 2018.” You know what the top results were? “Cost of Employer Health Coverage to Rise in 2019” … “Health Insurance: Premiums and Increases” … “How to Find Affordable Health Insurance in 2018” … and other, similar articles focused on what individuals will pay in premium (and in some instances, even dissecting co-pays, deductibles, and co-insurance). The common thread? They are all about participant out-of-pocket expenses. I didn’t ask how much it costs to obtain insurance. I asked how much it costs to obtain an appendectomy!
This is just a most recent example of an issue that sticks in my craw like no other, and reminds me of something I wrote years ago. Check this article out: https://moneyinc.com/affordable-health-insurance-is-not-affordable-health-care/.
“… too many people are confusing the term ‘health care’ with ‘health insurance.’ … Health care – meaning the actual act of caring for someone’s health – is necessary for survival. Health insurance – meaning a method by which we pay for health care – is just that; merely a means to pay for health care. Yet, a few years ago (2009 to be precise), a report posted by the American Journal of Public Health indicated that nearly 45,000 deaths are annually associated with a ‘lack of health insurance’ and that uninsured, working-age Americans have a forty percent higher risk of death than those with private insurance. The knee-jerk reaction to this news is likely (and likely was) to rush to provide health insurance to as many people as possible. Indeed, according to this report, health insurance saves lives. Furthermore, one could argue, if saving lives is health care, and health insurance saves lives, then health insurance is health care, and your author has proven himself wrong.… As stated before, however, health insurance is a method by which we pay for health care. It stands to reason, therefore, that it is not a lack of health insurance that kills people, but rather, it is a lack of means by which to pay for health care that kills people. This, then, leads us to a logical conclusion; the problem is not that we don’t have insurance … the problem is that we can’t pay for health care without insurance. This, then, leads to the next logical thought: why is health care so expensive?”
Go back and re-read the first paragraph of this blog post. Sadly, I fear my words published two years ago apply as much today as ever. Enjoy this blast from the past for Throwback Thursday, and let me know if you think we’ve advanced at all since then.