The biggest driver in medical costs is insurance. It prevents price discovery by everyone who has insurance. I buy an asthma inhaler and pay $10 copay for it. The insurance is paying over $200 for it, which is why insurance costs so much. Before insurance, the price would be different at different drug stores, and you could shop around. This was an incentive for lower prices. That same inhaler 50 years ago was only $15 full price. It's the same thing with doctors' prices. Now I have to pay $20 or $40 copay for a visit. When I was a child, we didn't have any insurance. My father would take me to the doctor. The doctor had a nurse and no other employees. They didn't have a ton of paperwork to keep up with. When the doctor was done, my father would hand the doctor himself the $5 or $10 that he charged, and the doctor would put the money in his pocket. When insurance came out, prices skyrocketed.
The biggest driver in medical costs is insurance. It prevents price discovery by everyone who has insurance. I buy an asthma inhaler and pay $10 copay for it. The insurance is paying over $200 for it, which is why insurance costs so much. Before insurance, the price would be different at different drug stores, and you could shop around. This was an incentive for lower prices. That same inhaler 50 years ago was only $15 full price.
It's the same thing with doctors' prices. Now I have to pay $20 or $40 copay for a visit. When I was a child, we didn't have any insurance. My father would take me to the doctor. The doctor had a nurse and no other employees. They didn't have a ton of paperwork to keep up with. When the doctor was done, my father would hand the doctor himself the $5 or $10 that he charged, and the doctor would put the money in his pocket. When insurance came out, prices skyrocketed.