Why Are American Health Care Costs So High?

Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their Premiums

Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their Premiums: As Thursday’s development shows, that public information empowers consumers by forcing insurers to compete with one another to attract customers. Or to put it another way — and contrary to conservative fear-mongering about the law — Obamacare is working exactly as it was intended to. And with 24 million Americans expected to gain coverage through the marketplaces by 2016, that’s great news for Americans’ pocketbooks — as well as their health.

California Insurance Commissioner Blasts Insurance Giant For Its ‘Unwarranted’ Rate Hikes

California Insurance Commissioner Blasts Insurance Giant For Its ‘Unwarranted’ Rate Hikes: California Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones on Wednesday slammed UnitedHealth Group — the nation’s largest private insurance company — over its decision to cut benefits and raise premiums for health plans used by close to 5,000 California small businesses. The combination of cuts and hikes would amount to a nearly eight percent rate hike for small [...]/p

PERRspectives: How the GOP Gets It All Wrong on Medicare in 5 Charts

PERRspectives: How the GOP Gets It All Wrong on Medicare in 5 Charts
"Of course, the real culprit is the very private insurance market Republicans want to put in charge of Medicare. And as the five charts above show, that won't be a pretty picture."

Horror Care: How Private Health Care Is Shortening Our Lives | Common Dreams

Horror Care: How Private Health Care Is Shortening Our Lives | Common Dreams
"Our private health care system has indeed failed us. We have by far the most expensive system in the developed world. The cost of common surgeries is anywhere from three to ten times higher in the U.S. than in Great Britain, Canada, France, or Germany.
Everyone has their hand in the money pot: insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms, physicians, hospitals, equipment suppliers, the AMA. Steven Brill notes that the medical industry has spent $5.36 billion on lobbying in the past 15 years, compared to $1.53 billion spent by the defense/aerospace industry and $1.3 billion spent by oil and gas interests."

The US Healthcare System - Government Sanctioned Extortion

The US Healthcare System - Government Sanctioned Extortion
"I've been calling the for-profit health insurance industry "government sanctioned extortion" for a few years now. It wasn't until I read Time magazine's cover story this week, "Bitter Pill: Why Medical Bills are Killing Us" that I realized that the whole medical industrial complex is complicit in the crime! And some of the worst offenders are the so-called "non-profit" hospitals that are raking in billions of dollars in profits and their obscenely paid executives."

How Hospital Bills Are Killing Americans

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