In my view, there are really three major groups of people driving our current healthcare crisis.
1. Over utilization of services by the insured.
2. Unscrupulous providers - many haven’t been caught yet though I recently turned on in to the OIG.
3. Lawyers
It’s NOT the ethical providers that are causing the crisis.
Anecdotally, when I was growing up, I often had earaches, colds, etc. What was different then from today was there was no managed care. Parents took me to the doctor, paid him at the time of service, and when they had insurance, came home and filed the claim themselves - most of the time subject to a deductible. Thus, my parent’s didn’t run me off to the Dr. every-time I had an earache or cold.
They were a big part of controlling spending. Then came managed care in the 70's and the rest is history. Today’s generation knows nothing of this approach to healthcare and will run to the doctor at the drop of the hat. HSA’s will contribute to the self-regulation of healthcare, but it's only a VERY small part of spending today. Perhaps it will grow, but it will take a while to pry the insurance cards away from the addicted managed care patients.
That's also how it was when I was a kid.
One thing is for sure, I am not looking forward to Medicare at all. I've got four more years to start educating myself when it comes to dealing with them.
Maybe I'll just opt out by ramming a bullet into my head! ;^)