healthcare spending up...great news folks!

http://archive.delawareonline.com/usatoday/article/8570053

My first thoughts when I see this- demand is up. In economics, when demand increases, price increases. We have more people trying to access the same amount of medical services and providers as there were when demand was lower. In order to compensate for larger traffic, doctors and facilities need to increase what they charge to coordinate their wait times and get people to think twice about using that care. Also when we have insurance taking care of the bill, that means more claims are being processed and the premium dollars are going to be going sooner.
The big problem with healthcare, is people don't know what it actually costs. Insurance companies keep that a bit of a secret until after the services are complete. What's worse, is the costs vary across providers, and since you have no clue what each provider charges until after the fact, there is no real market power happening. In short, can costs really go up when there is no market movements? All we have is more people using a system . Maybe that system was under utilized before. There could actually be an economy of scale happening. Now a doctor who saw only 10 patients in a day and twiddling his thumbs and making people wait while he talks to a pharma rep, now has 12 patients and that pharma rep can't schmooze as long. Now that doctor gets to make more due to higher patient loads and gets to work for just as many hours. What a win. There are so many ways to look at this, but boy is it interesting. Little do most Americans know that with the new healthcare law, people who get subsidized costs due to their income, will not see any cost increases or decreases like those who actually pay full price for their insurance. Higher income earners and tax dollars take the brunt of all increases in premiums and will be the ones highly affected.
I think the lesson to be learned is that if we want to be insured, expect to pay more when you earn more and live your live the best you can financially so you don't go bankrupt paying for healthcare.

fewer people without health insurance!

I will be the first to say that these numbers actually surprise me. This article published by Reuters here http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/05/05/us-usa-healthcare-poll-idUSBREA440DA20140505 states that uninsured rates have declined by 5%! I honestly thought we would see a shift in who was insured. For instance, we would see those who previously could not afford insurance going on Medicaid and getting subsidized and those who could afford insurance before, but now can't due to high rates, opting out. I think the article agrees there really isn't an exact answer to this though as there are many factors still in play. A lot of people, myself included, have older health plans that still reflect lower rates. My policy isn't set to expire until December and I know most of Las Vegas on those older plans are in the same boat.
I wonder if that 5% represents those who were uninsured because they couldn't get insurance, but could afford it, or if they were the millions of people who previously couldn't afford insurance due to lack of employment and now have Medicaid. I know we got almost 3-5 times the calls for people wanting Medicaid than any other call. A lot of people who got subsidized insurance were just replacing what they already had and/or looking for alternatives to their COBRA options.
I think the real test to this new system is going to be in a few more years when we start seeing some strong economic job growth. The only question is will this law halt that job growth? A lot of socialized countries see higher natural unemployment rates than we do. So maybe we are seeing a new norm? This law will be seen as a success then in getting more people insurance as was intended.