Why Does Health Insurance Cost So Much?Written by Michael Ertel
Why does health insurance cost so much? Year after year, many of articles that appear in print detail specific factors driving cost of healthcare.These factors include: general inflation, advances in drugs and other medical devices, rising hospital and doctor expenses, government mandates, increased consumer demand, litigation, fraud, and cost shifting. The basic answer is that a magic bullet to solve cost of insurance does not exist because real difficulty is controlling cost of healthcare. A simple way to dramatically decrease dollars spent on healthcare is to reduce demand for healthcare. I have seen estimates that up to 40% of all healthcare related expenses result from preventable conditions. These preventable conditions are caused by lifestyle choices such as tobacco, obesity, stress, lack of exercise and poor diet.
| | Health Care and Health Insurance Costs Can Be Controlled Through Lifestyle ChoicesWritten by Michael Ertel
As you probably know all to well, cost of healthcare and health insurance premiums continue to increase at levels substantially above general inflation rate. The reasons given for these extraordinary cost increases are numerous and include: technological advancements in medical field, increased demand for medical services and prescription drugs, aging of population, cost shifting caused by uninsured and governmental reimbursement rates, state and federal mandates, and costs associated with medical related lawsuits.As individual consumers, we have very little control over some of factors contributing to cost of healthcare. However, all of us have control over lifestyle related health insurance claims. A simple formula of eating a balanced diet, getting appropriate amount of daily exercise, participating in annual physicals and other recommended routine care, limiting alcohol consumption, and eliminating use of tobacco products will no doubt reduce our personal healthcare costs. In addition to reducing medical costs, other benefits of following such a
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