A Health Insurance “Bubble” — Are We There Yet?

Is there an insurance “bubble” similar to the disastrous one the country endured in the housing industry, but with a different outcome? There will be no government bailout for citizens who have no money to pay for rising insurance premiums.

“Note: At the end of this blog post, I have included a web resource for finding out how much hospital procedures actually cost.”

I recently attended a convention in San Francisco themed: “Health for Tomorrow,” sponsored by UCSF and The New York Times. The New York Times health reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal was keynote speaker and moderator. Rosenthal is an MD who worked in hospitals, then transitioned to a career in writing. In her six years at the Times, she has been sent around the world, and lived in the Far East among other countries, and also covered US health Issues.

As a physician and a writer, Rosenthal’s research around the world, especially in Europe, has given her a comparative view of healthcare costs. Health insurance in Europe is usually in the hands of the government, which negotiates drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Costs are standardized, controlled, and less than they are in the U.S. If the doctor or nurse takes blood from you, it is one price, and that price is a lot less than prices in the U.S. There is no extra charge for equipment necessary for blood draw, such as syringes, needles, gloves, etc.

Rosenthal has written many articles published in The New York Times about health, health costs, billing procedures, etc. She presented some of what she has written about at the recent San Francisco convention:

• The antibiotic Augmentin costs about $250.00 for 19 pills here in the U.S. In Belgium this amount of money buys you 445 Augmentin pills from the same company.

• One older model of asthma inhaler retails in the U.S. for about $100,00 for two inhalers in one package. In Belgium, $100.00 buys you 37 of the same inhalers from the same company.

• Newer models of asthma inhalers, i. e. with rotating date scale, cost about $200.00 in the U.S. The dates scale has a patent and the patient/customer has to pay for this patent, besides paying for the medicine.

  
  

The insurance we have now is a cost-sharing model, as it is called by the insurance companies. This means you pay a part and the insurance pays a part. Not bad basically but . . . I think I would rather call it a cost-shifting model. We, as the customer, pay more and more for our health insurance.

If the dates are right, 95% of Californians receive subsidies from the state under the ACA (Affordable Care Act) for the health insurances they signed up for. But the rest have to pay the full prices, and for many it is quite a lot more than their previous insurance. I am aware of people who stop paying for health insurance after the few months they paid into it under the ACA.

Do You Want to Know How Much Procedures Cost?California is one of the few states that has an Internet resource called the California Hospital Charge Master. The Hospital Charge Master compares prices for health procedures. Check it out at www.oshpd.ca.gov/chargemaster/