Since the Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) passed in 2010, how are you doing?
As the graph below shows, health insurance premiums have grown steadily, and this was not slowed by ACA. Since 2000, the average U.S. family health insurance premium has increased from $6,000 to more than $25,000 in 2024. That’s a 297% increase, more than triple overall inflation. This does not tell the whole story because deductibles and copays have also increased, as have denials of coverage.
Obviously, mandating insurance and requiring cost-free inclusion of “preventive” services did not lower costs.
Health “insurance” is actually not insurance but prepayment for consumption through a third party. True health insurance, which reimburses the subscriber—not the provider—according to the terms of the contract (as through an indemnity table), has practically vanished. Such insurance covers only unpredictable catastrophic costs, not routine or known costs. It does not “manage” care, but just pays bills, like other casualty insurance. Premiums are based on risks, as calculated by actuaries.
There are uninsurable risks, and uninsurable people. Such needs must be met by other mechanisms such as charity or welfare or fraternal organizations or employee benefits.
Costs will never come down as long as “other people” are forced to pay for “all necessary care.”
Additional information:
- What free-market, self-pay surgery costs: Surgery Center of Oklahoma
- White Paper on Repeal/Replacement of the Affordable Care Act
- White Paper: After the Affordable Care Act: Freedom for All vs. Medicare for All
- Healthcare Is Not an Insurable Risk
Author Jane Orient, M.D., is the Executive Director, Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), can be reached by email at this link: jane@aapsonline.org. Since 1943, AAPS has been dedicated to the highest ethical standards of the Oath of Hippocrates and to preserving the sanctity of the patient-physician relationship and the practice of private medicine.