Are insurance companies to blame for health insurance being so expensive?

The costs associated with treating disease and healing the sick continue to rise. And new PPACA healthcare laws mean everyone is being charged more – For maternity care and other benefits they may not ever need (think seniors, men, children,…) or ever require. A new AP Poll says that 77% of people blame so-called Obamacare for their rising healthcare costs. But some are reporting that healthcare costs are skyrocketing due to the health insurance companies themselves. Middlemen, Administrators, File clerks, Transcriptionists, responding to more and more records and claims, than your aches and pains, all while doctors in many cases are being offered less per patient this year. As are hospitals.

“Because insurers are paid a fixed percentage of the claims they administer, they have no incentive to hold down costs.” So says Jeffrey Pfeffer for Bloomberg Businessweek (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-10/the-reason-health-care-is-so-expensive-insurance-companies)

And while insurance carriers say that industry “profits” are not the reason costs keep going up, profits are not the same as a growing industry employing more and more workers that require to be paid, as well as require their own health benefits. Of course, private insurance companies also help detect fraud, encourage development of generic drugs, negotiate lower competitive pricing, instill wellness programs, and invest in medical information technology.

Aetna has felt the need to respond, by reporting their profits and inflation compared to other costs associated with healthcare as well as the industry as a whole. See their response here: http://www.aetna.com/health-reform-connection/aetnas-vision/facts-about-costs.html

Internationally healthcare costs are also rising, especially in Singapore, Macau, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and Japan. And in poor, developing countries it’s rising even faster than in the West. (see http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/a-world-of-rising-health-care-costs/)

Whether you bypass the health insurance carriers by self-funding your own health plan for domestic and international workers; or choose group insurance with an international carrier and a broker that understands how to customize your benefits (as well as use other cost-saving techniques) to protect your staff, a good neighbor always helps. It’s our goal to do everything we can to help good people put good ideas to work overseas and see good results – To keep them safe. To use funds wisely. To see the job through to completion. We’re good so you can be better.