Consumer’s Health Insurance Blog

I got to thinking about how the media reports increases in health costs and how “the system” is broken because folks can’t afford insurance, and then they go on to report about the increasing unhealthy habits in the U.S. and the increasing age of the U.S. population. But I don’t see a correlation between the two being reported often, when it is obvious: Our health costs are going up because we are getting older and we have poor health habits. A statistical trend, of course. I’m not pointing at you. (You’ve got a little bit of donut on the corner of your mouth. Give it a little wipe. There, that’s better.)

This realization came to me today as I was reading a blog posting about the trend away from employer based coverage which included the usual comparison of health insurance premium increases compared to overall spending increases in the consumer price index as part of a post about the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s recent report.

Do we need to always hammer away at the point that if we took better care of ourselves, our cost of health insurance would be lower? And that if we didn’t expect to live forever in perfect health, and accepted the changes that come with aging, we might spend less on healthcare?

Of course not. Then we’d have to blame ourselves for the state of affairs of health insurance. It’s better to blame the system. That way we don’t have to stop eating and smoking so much and can continue to avoid exercise.

Jonathan Pletzke is a consumer expert on health insurance and author of the health insurance book Get a Good Deal on Your Health Insurance Without Getting Ripped-Off, available online and at bookstores nationally. Additional details can be found at the consumers health insurance book and resources website www.BestHealthInsuranceBook.com. Copyright 2007-2008 Aji Publishing.

Tags:   Health Insurance · inflation · unhealthy habits1 Comment