Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Why Is Healthcare Insurance So Expensive

The main reasons why health insurance is has such high premiums now is that medical procedures cost a lot and are probably over used. Physicians now routinely perform many costly operations and procedures that were unheard of ten years ago. Our unhealthy lifestyles also impact our costs. We need medical care more and more. One way to shrink our costs for health insurance would be to shrink the number of bypass operations and angioplasties that are performed. In the good old days of less expensive medical insurance, these medical interventions were performed much less frequently.

Of course shrinking the number of interventions without lowering the necessity for those interventions would simply result in earlier deaths. The unwanted side effect of lowering costs is often lowering effectiveness.

A tremendous percentage of medical expenses are generated in the last years or even months of life. In an attempt to extend life we often will spare no expense.

From a purely financial standpoint, extending the working life of a forty year old helps our country more than extending the life of an eighty year old. Chances are the forty year old is working and paying taxes. If they were to die she or he would stop paying income taxes. If she or he were to become disabled they would not only stop contributing to our government's coffers, but might also start being paid money from the government in the form of government benefits. Extending the life of a senior citizen who is no longer paying earning contributing to our GDP or taxes and who is currently getting Social Security benefits has the reverse effect.

Money isn't everything but, we should at least be conscious of the importance of helping currently tax-paying workers continue to be tax-paying workers puts more money in our pockets that we can use for other things. Those other things can include extending the life of our senior citizens.

Unless you are a in congress, there is probably not a lot that you can do to change what health care insurance costs for everyone else. However, there may be a lot you can do to keep the costs down for yourself and your family.

Do what you can to stay hale and hearty. Being active and eating healthy foods in the right quantities will do several things for your health care costs.

If you are more healthy you will tap into your health care insurance less. This means that you will have less coinsurance and other out-of-pocket expenses to pay. You will qualify for lower premiums if you need to purchase private or individual medical insurance.

Shop around for medical insurance. Look at not only different insurance carriers, but different places to get coverage from. If you are eligible for COBRA, for example don't just look at COBRA. Consider private medical insurance also.

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