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Continuing cluelessness on consequences: 6%/year health cost increases--Rant #1

There was an op-ed by the Wall Street Journal editorial board this morning blasting recent health insurance premium increases under the Affordable Care Act (ACA, i.e., "Obamacare").  The most interesting line in the editorial was: "Underlying health costs continue to rise, but this trend is merely about 3.5% to 7% depending on the state."  "Merely"!?!  Given that average US real wages only increased a bit over 2% with no CPI inflation over the past year, "health costs" as defined here are going up around 2-3 times faster than people's ability to pay.  This is consistent with trends over the past 30+ years of rarely-abated high health care inflation.  At least the WSJ got one thing right:  the ACA's promise of prevention and lowering health care costs has proven to be a fig leaf, covering up the main ACA priority of increasing access to health care--a noble but very expensive and ultimately unaffordable goal when health care costs are 50-100% higher in the US than any other major country.   All ACA subsidies are going on the kids' and grandkids' credit card, aka the US national debt;  hardly "affordable" from an inter-generational point of view.  Until the media start talking much more about how unhealthy habits need to be changed to lower health care inflation, we'll keep ignoring root causes and stay mired in high health costs.

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