BenefitsAll

2019—A Health Care Revolution Is Coming

January 09, 2019


If there’s a new year’s prediction that’s easy to make, it is that health insurance and health care prices will rise. The year 2017 was a hugely profitable one for large health insurers, and as predicted premium prices increased significantly in 2018. In 2018, health insurers again saw significant increases in quarterly profits and, you guessed it, monthly premiums increased in 2019. Annual health insurance premium increases are a trend with no end in sight because, why not. Medical care and pharmaceutical prices also rise each year in our anything goes health care system.

Meanwhile, people who have health insurance don’t want to use it because even with insurance, they may have to pay high medical bills when they receive care. Other people, especially in the individual health insurance market, are going without health insurance. After years of paying thousands of dollars each year in insurance premiums and deductibles, they have nothing else to give. Which makes me wonder: with all the frustration over ever-increasing health insurance and health care prices, will 2019 be the year the health care status quo loses its political and cultural support?

It’s On! (The Health Care Value Debate)

Maybe it's me trying to deal with the anger I feel about the 25% increase in health insurance premiums Cigna gifted me this year, but I’m starting to get a sense that 2019 won’t be business as usual for our greedy health insurance and health care industries. Or maybe it's a number of other signs I’m seeing in the health care reform policy debate:

  • The new Democrat-led Congress elected to protect health care access, address health-insurance and health care costs, and explore universal health care options like Medicare-For-All or Buy-In, and Medicaid-For-All or Buy-
  • The growing demand for real health care price data and all-payer claims databases by individuals and state governments, respectively
  • The consistent reporting of and angry responses to outrageous medical care costs like the $629 Band-Aid, $4,000 surgical screw, and $52,000 per month prescription drug
  • The study of health care value both nationally and internationally—what are we getting for the trillions we are spending, and what’s the real cost of innovation

Resistance Is Futile, But It Will Be Fierce

Weariness with the health care status quo is inching closer to action and the health care and health insurance industries will have a coordinated response to counter any talk of or movement towards change. They already have a lot going for them to maintain their edge in the fight for and against health care reform. First, there’s the money. All the money we’ve transferred to them in the form of premiums, government subsides, and fees, they will use to lobby elected officials to go slow on the Medicare For All thing. And they’ll use that tax break the federal government just gave them to create marketing materials highlighting the “evils” of single payer health care. They will pay libertarian and conservative writers to write articles about the universal health care socialist hellscape. With our money! Then, and this is the big one, the health insurance and health care industries will pit us against each other. You see, they know where we all sit on the health care reform continuum—if you are paying for insurance and/or medical care yourself, you’re dying for reform; if your insurance is subsidized and you receive significant medical care discounts, reform may not be that important to you.

Employment-based health insurance is a huge advantage for insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies trying to maintain the status quo—which means we may have to go to war with our friends and family members in order to get affordable health care for everyone.

But all is not lost, the ills of our health care system are starting to affect more and more people. Even subsidized health insurance costs are as high as many people’s mortgage. Another factor that bodes well for reform is the criticism and denunciation foreign and domestic, backed by studies and data, of a health care system that is not the best in the world, but one with poor health outcomes. “Where’s the value?” is a question that health insurers and health care providers can no longer avoid.

Conclusion

Health insurance and health care are personal—this is not a bad thing in and of itself, but it does make reforming an entrenched, money-focused health care system outrageously difficult. With Russia-style precision, we can expect health insurers to target workers with subsidized, employer-provided health insurance with messages of fear of the unknown. They will work to convince them that Medicare For All means less benefits and more money from their paychecks. Health care reformers have to remind everyone that more money is what our current health care system demands year after year.

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