Re: What is the root cause of the rising cost of health care ?

On Mon, 3 Sep 2007 22:58:43 -0500, "Peter Olcott"
<NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:46dca9d6.37952940@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Mon, 3 Sep 2007 20:35:24 -0500, "Peter Olcott"
<NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Partly because they are a bureaucracy, and thus very
resistant to change, and partly because they are in bed
with
the health care industry, and partly because it doesn't
really cost them anything, they simply raise their rates.

And maybe they are just an inefficient provider that has
not yet
succumbed to market forces.

They form the insulation between the otherwise rational
health care consumer and the market forces.

If there is one thing we know, it is that health care consumers are
not rational. And if there is another thing we know, it is that even
if health care consumers were rational, they are typically not in full
control of "their" purchase decisions.

If no one had
any health insurance, and instead put the same amount of
money away into health savings accounts that could later be
converted into retirement savings accounts, then and only
then would the market forces be in full force driving prices
downward.

No, that is just flat false. Insurers already have every reason to
want to reduce the prices they pay (which might be why they often try
to avoid paying at all), just as individual consumers would: they want
to make more profits. They are just unable to do so because of
government restrictions on supply.

-- Roy L
.

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