Over the years, there has indeed been a surge in healthcare costs in the US. This is apparent when you pay a mere $40 for an aspirin when you see a doctor. This is just one illustration. You see, healthcare costs have risen across every healthcare department. Even for a mere vaccine or stitches, you’ll pay a massive sum, which had a menial cost a few years back. But why? It’s because the payment system has gotten too complex. Add onto several business regulations, and you’ll witness health insurance prices skyrocketing. Let’s dig deep to identify the root cause of rising healthcare costs.
Why Has Healthcare Become Expensive?
If you depend on news and reports, you may find them misleading and confusing about healthcare prices. But don’t worry. Some actual factors at play can give a clear picture of healthcare in the US.
Read along to explore them and enlighten yourself with ways to reduce the costs.
The Affordable Care Act of 2010
US President Barack Obama initiated the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010 to allow every American citizen access to healthcare. While it took some years to finally progress, the main parts of the law became operational by 2014.
However, the outcomes were not clear and mixed. On the bright side, millions of Americans now had access to health insurance coverage since insurance companies had to, under the law, serve every citizen, regardless of any pre-existing condition. Now you might be wondering how the ACA Act causes prices to rise.
Well, traditionally, health insurance premiums were based on the age and health conditions of users. For example, young, healthy people usually had low premiums, while people with pre-existing conditions had high premiums. But things changed when the ACA became the law, urging insurance companies to charge the same amount to every policyholder, regardless of their health.
However, now these companies are faced with challenges. Firstly, they had to admit anyone in a health plan and charge them a standard premium. But this policy caused insurance companies to pay more to cover each person. Well, that’s not how business works, and companies have to make a profit to keep running.
Therefore, companies raised the premiums to cover their expenses and continue their business. Hence, that’s how the ACA act caused the health insurance premiums to rise. Here are some of the best health insurance companies in the industry that we have gathered for you.
Administrative Costs
Administrative costs include billing, scheduling appointments, managing, and insurance management. You might be surprised, but the healthcare system spends billions of dollars on these expenses alone.
But why? Check out these facts:
- Hospitals in the US have more administrative specialists than the number of patient beds.
- The US’ health care structure is more complex than other countries, ultimately increasing the need and cost of administrative tasks.
Prescription Drugs
The increasing health care costs can also be attributed to the increasingly large prescription medicinal drug prices. Although the regulations in the pharmaceutical industry have slowed down the prices, the prices are still growing at a slow rate.
Tip: Choose generic medicines to lower the costs.
Lifestyle
A commonly heard proverb ‘prevention is better than cure’ stresses the role played by lifestyle in determining health care costs. This is because a careless lifestyle causes some injuries and poor health conditions. A lack of a healthy diet and daily exercise can lead to life-threatening problems, including diabetes, heartaches, obesity, and cancer.
Hence, take hold of your lifestyle today and lower your healthcare premiums.
Conclusion
So far, we have looked over several variables contributing to rising healthcare prices. As per the above discussion, it’s clear that healthcare prices will rise and are not going down anytime soon. You can resolve to adopt a healthy lifestyle, value yourself, and ensure you don’t require frequent healthcare.
Moreover, health insurance is also essential to safeguard you from rising health care costs. Connect with New Health Insurance now and get free quotes from top lenders to ensure a low premium. You can learn more about how to purchase long-term health insurance here.