Who Pays for Health Care?

All the recent talk about health care reform has me thinking about an article I read last year about who pays for health care. So let’s begin with a question; namely, who do you think pays for health care? Is it employers? The government? Insurance companies? Individuals? If you’re like most Americans, you probably believe that employers pay the bulk of their workers’ insurance premiums and that governments pay for Medicare and Medicaid (and some will remember to add in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – SCHIP). Some of you will no doubt believe that insurance companies pay for a lot of our health care since that’s where so many of the bills seem to go. In actuality, according to the article I read in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the answer is that it’s individuals and households who pay for the entire health care bill. Moreover, failure to understand this fundamental fact perpetuates the myth that we can all get great health benefits paid for by someone else. Real health care reform is impossible until we realize that the money is all coming from our own pockets. The article was entitled “Who Really Pays for Health Care” and it was authored by Drs. Ezekiel Emanuel and Victor Fuchs of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Economics at Stanford University, respectively. You may recognize Dr. Emanuel as being the older brother White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. (Dr. Ema...
Source: Dr. Z's Medical Report - Category: Physicians With Health Advice Authors: Tags: Healthy Living blog community Dr Z Dr. Z's medical report Ed Zimney Everyday Health Health Care insurance payment Politics premium Reform Source Type: blogs