Why does health insurance cost so much? Year after year, many
of the articles that appear in print detail the specific factors
driving the 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 the cost of
insurance does not exist because the real difficulty is
controlling the cost of healthcare. A simple way to dramatically
decrease the dollars spent on healthcare is to reduce the 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.
Most of us, myself included, make lifestyle
choices everyday that eventually increase our demand for
healthcare. We are never going to be able to totally eliminate
all lifestyle related healthcare costs. However, improved
lifestyle choices would cause a dramatic reduction in demand.
This would then result in a similar reduction in the dollars
spent on healthcare.
Lower demand for healthcare would
result in lower health insurance costs, increased productivity,
and reduced absenteeism. If your organization has not done so
already, your organizational leaders need to seriously consider
the benefits of health promotion and disease prevention
programs. Your return on investment will most likely be as high
as 2:1 in the first year.
About the Author:
Michael Ertel the founder of
http://www.MedicalInsuranceNow.com which is a website that
assists individuals and small business owners by providing side
by side comparisons of health insurance alternatives.
