To shine a spotlight on America's outrageously expensive health care system, two media firms that are great at explaining health care policy, asked individuals to share their medical bills with them. Kaiser Health News (KHN) and National Public Radio's (NPR) "Bill of the Month" series does exactly what its name implies. It takes a medical bill submitted by an individual and dissects it to better understand how, for example, four tiny surgical screws or one extensive urine test can cost as much as a car. Vox Media, the other news organization requesting medical bills, performs a similar review, but for hospital emergency room bills only.

Both the KHN/NPR and Vox projects started in 2018, but stories about inexplicably high medical bills are not new. Major news organizations have been shocking readers with reports of shameless health care price gouging for years. Journalist, Steven Brill's 2013 article, "America's Bitter Pill…" in Time Magazine, grabbed the nation's attention like no other health care price article has before or since. In fact, Brill's blockbuster article likely inspired NPR and Vox's current medical bill review projects, as well as several bestselling books on the subject.

Meanwhile, a similar information campaign about income/wealth inequality is also cause for outrage. But if the response to news about income/wealth inequality is any indication, what can we expect the stories about health care price gouging to accomplish? Remember Occupy Wall Street and Fight For $15—how participants in these movements were mocked as naïve losers out to take from the makers? And how Republican lawmakers enacted tax cuts for corporations and wealthy individuals to punctuate the defeat of these groups? It's not hard to believe that this is the fate of the health care price outrage campaign. For every successful teachers' strike there is an annual health insurance premium increase to gobble up any negotiated benefits increase.

Yearly health insurance premium cost increases are about as common as the common cold. The projected rate increases for 2019 are astounding. According to a report by Covered California, using data from multiple sources, "all states' individual markets risk higher than normal premium increases—ranging from 35 to 90 percent cumulative), over three years." Increases for 2019 "will likely range from 12 to 32 percent." And this news comes after major health insurance companies confessed to receiving record profits in 2017, despite their earlier, unverified projections of major losses.

Every Problem Has a Solution

To say that there are a lot of proposals to "fix" America's health care affordability problem is an understatement. Politicians, academics, and policy advisors all have their proposals to "increase access" to affordable health care. And while the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) changed the health care landscape a lot by providing millions with comprehensive and inexpensive health insurance coverage, it didn't stop the Bill of the Month outrage stories. So what might curb health care industry price gouging? The answer may be less than a generation away.

You often hear that when the older generation is gone, things will get better for everyone else. This is rarely true of most social and cultural challenges, but maybe it'll prove true for health care affordability. The Baby Boomers and Generation Xers, at least the professional classes that were accustomed to generous and affordable health insurance and health care, are already starting to leave the workforce. Millennials and Generation Zers cannot count on employers and their younger colleagues to subsidize their health benefits. They've already felt the sting of ever-increasing health insurance premiums and reduced benefits. Maybe one day they will realize that the status quo, that was great for the Baby Boomers, is not so good for them, and so on and so forth.

Conclusion

I hope this is one next-generation prediction that comes true because we need sustained, fierce outrage to put a stop to health care price gouging. As long as the health insurance and health care industries' number one reason for existing is to provide value to their shareholders, they will continue their price gouging ways, whether through the high premiums they charge for their products, or the "negotiated" inflated health care prices they agree to pay each other.

Tags: Bill of the month, Vox.com, America's Bitter Pill, health care costs, health care cost inequality