The National Health

Yesterday it was announced what everyone knows happens every year: health insurance premiums are going up. Big surprise. Apparently, though, it was a surprise to some that the average cost to insure a family is now at $15K per year, and that this year's increases were higher than expected.

What the news reports have failed to mention that is while this has been happening, insurers' profits have gone up. Where is the cry for some intervention from the government? (Let's not use the R word right now. It's not politically correct.) Come on, people! Unemployment is a huge issue. Health insurance is usually dependent on employment. Unemployment pays little. Health insurance costs a lot. Do the arithmetic.

Better still, someone please explain how to curb these costs with market forces and consumer responsibility. Obviously, market forces don't work in favor of driving down insurance costs, and consumers are rarely in a position to get an answer about costs. Recently, someone I know passed two kidney stones. He went to NYU Medical Center, near his office and then to Greenwich Hospital, near his home, as each stone started to pass with pain that required morphine. He couldn't just call various pharmacies to get quotes on the morphine. Moreover, he didn't think to call the radiology departments affiliated with these hospitals in advance to get quotes on what the CT scans would cost. (He has a high deductible and no co-pays, which means his out of pocket expenses are more than some people put down on a car.) Greenwich Radiology actually charged significantly more than NYU's radiology department. Go figure. Real estate in New York City (and this is midtown) is higher than it is in Greenwich. The facilities are more or less comparable. So why is one so much more? No one has an answer.

Which begs the question: what is the value of that CT scan? $900 or about twice the cost? What's scary is that even though a hospital will take your insurance card, the people in admitting will not disclose that a particular department operates (no pun intended) independently of the hospital. Many radiologists do not accept insurance. Nor do anesthesiologists. Even if you have insurance, and even if you get pre-approval for something from your insurance company, you can still have unlimited liability. This is a health care system and the best in the world, at that? I don't think so. It's more like organized crime, executed with the blessings of the state and federal government.