How can health care costs rise 5 times the rate of inflation....?

[lib2DaBone]

..and no one sees a problem? Yet we must cut Social Security? Just askin'.... ?

[Skittles]

1. they never address WHY it costs so much

just HOW / WHO to pay for it

[midnight]

4. True....

[kenny blankenship]

2. They charge whatever the market will bear

and since the main item in the product catalog is your continued existence above ground, you will pay whatever you're told to.

In a way, it is the purest expression of capitalism to be found.

[eridani]

12. Indeed. Remember those old cartoons showing a man crawling toward a mirage in a desert?

Add a water stand with the legend "Water--$10,000 a bottle". That's the business model for the American health care industry. It doesn't happen in civilized countries because their governments make that business model illegal.

[kestrel91316]

3. Because a free market and competition makes for lower costs and hence

lower prices.

Oh, wait........

[applegrove]

5. Yup. Where health care is concerned only public health care is efficient. Private not so much.

[Psephos]

6. Oil has risen 50 times the rate of inflation in just the past two years.

Plenty more examples out there. Gold, corn, rare earths, the list is long.

[JoeyT]

11. Yeah, but there are concrete reasons for those prices rising.

Even if the reasons are BS or due to human stupidity.

We're never given a reason for why medical care, prescriptions, or insurance keep rocketing upward. Well, other than "Because you die otherwise so you'll pay whatever we demand.".

[KT2000]

7. Every time I refill a prescriptions

it costs more.
Our local hospital is always building new facilities and purchasing more high tech equipment.
They own several clinics in town and bill outrageously - an office call is billed as an out patient procedure if anything is done outside of talking.
With more un insureds - they bill several times the amount that would have been charged to an insured person.

The numbers need to be examined to determine how much is gouging and fancy bookkeeping.

[safeinOhio]

8. Expensive lobbyist are

a great investment that pay 5 times the rate of inflation.

[SheilaT]

9. Part of it is that medical technology

increases very fast. And that technology is, for a variety of reasons, very expensive.

For example, imaging technology gets better, as in more sensitive, all the time. New machines are built. They cost a lot of money.

The research and development to develop new drugs really does take a lot of money.

But maybe all aspects of medical care should be treated the way utilities used to be, with a lid on the profits allowed. That kept costs to the consumer down, while the utilities made a profit. Back in the days of Ma Bell, for all the complaining people liked to do about the phone company, the service was extremely reliable, not very expensive (other than long distance rates which were somewhat pricy), and the phone company would come to your house and repair the lines without any charge to you. It was all included in the rate structure. And working for the phone company was a pretty good job that paid decently.

[Jmaxfie1]

10. My sister says a very similiar thing.

She says one of the reasons that health care is getting more expensive is that we are getting better at it and people are living longer. (Basically we can keep you alive longer, but its going to cost a ton). She's like me, we both believe single payer is the only thing that makes sense.