[houston1]

.private companies who must be efficient to make a profit

not if they just keep raising the rates every year, my health insurance is going up 20% next year, if they were being efficient the costs should go down once in a while

[Hostage]

I don’t believe health insurance company greed or mismanagement is the largest factor in rising healthcare costs.

I believe Medicare and Medicaid are the largest factors.

The US population is aging and more people as a percentage are required ny law to be on Medicare.

The deep recession is bring more and more people as a percentage onto Medicaid.

The health insurance companies are forced to subsidize doctors, clinics and hospitals who lose money from forced medicare and medicaid operations. Doctors, clinics and hospitals are poorly reimbursed from Medicare. And doctors cannot refuse to see their patient who recently turned 65 and is now required to be on Medicare.

Often doctors who have practices that become too weighted with Medicare patients, they are forced to retire or move to a different area and start over. They can refuse to see a new patient who is covered by Medicare, but they can’t refuse to see a patient who turns 65 and becomes a Medicare patient.

So what doctors, clinics and hospitals do is bill under every code and also they practice defensively to avoid lawsuits. Those factors together with an aging population are likely the single greatest cause of rising health premiums.