Wow, can President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi been lying about health insurance companies?
From jsonline: Yet health economists contend that insurance companies, while often meriting criticism for their practices, aren't to blame for high health care costs.
""You've got to have a villain," said Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University. "Beating up on hospitals is not a good thing because people generally like their hospital. Beating up on doctors is not a good thing because people usually like their doctor. But no one likes their insurance company."
Focusing on insurance rates, he argues, misses the point.
"What really drives it is the cost trend of health care, which is composed in part of utilization and in part of prices," Reinhardt said. "In our market-driven system, a doctor or hospital essentially charges the maximum they can get."
Another factor is the money spent on care that might do little to improve people's health or that is no more effective than less-expensive treatments. So, too, is Americans' demand for health care services.
"The primary reason that health care costs and health insurance premiums are rising so rapidly is the amount of health care that we consume," said Katherine Baicker, a professor of health economics at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Now, that is not to say there are no problems with the insurance industry."
The key to slowing the growth in costs, Baicker added, will be using health care dollars more wisely."
Well, that has been what conservatives have been saying.
The professors involved are from Harvard and Princeton, hardly the beacon of conservatism.
So, next time Obama, Pelosi and Reid flap their gums about the health care insurance companies, take it with a huge 100 pound grain of salt.
At the Prairie Café...
5 hours ago
Everything Obama learned about diplomacy he learned in kindergarten and it is us, the Americans who are paying for him not learing good lessons in the childhood. Hope his putting America on the path of "set a good example and others will follow" philosphy works!
ReplyDeleteCynthia