Health Care, Not Health Insurance, is the Problem

I've been listening to a ton of "health care" debate and the fact is, what we're dealing with now, is a "health insurance" debate...and it's ridiculous. Here's why: Health insurance isn't the problem! The problem is the cost of health care itself.

To give an example: United Health Care, everyone's favorite, evil health insurance company, pays out 82% of all premiums collected to hospitals. Even if they could be run at the 3% administrative rate that Medicare claims to be run at (which is bogus because that number doesn't consider fraud), their customers would only save 15% on their total health care expenditures. With health care rising at about 6% a year, it will only about 3 years before any savings on insurance costs are eaten up by the actual health care costs.

Despite what the politicians and media are saying, the major problem we have to solve is how to bring down health care costs and not how to get everyone insured. Yes, insuring people is a concern, but the biggest issue we're facing is the cost of care.

It doesn't matter if the government runs that as a sole payer, a public option is available, or it's all handled by the private sector. Until we figure out a way to actually fix the cost of the care itself, we will continue on a path towards either bankruptcy as a nation or serious restrictions on health care.

My next health care post will give you all the solution to the problem. Stay tuned...