How come health care costs so much?

If you’ve had surgery recently or visited the Emergency Room, you’ve probably come away with a serious case of sticker shock. A routine ER visit can cost hundreds of dollars and a major surgery—including joint replacement—can run into the tens of thousands.

So why does it cost so much?

It’s not a simple answer. Doctors point the finger at managed care, and managed care points the finger back.

Gerry Morton, CEO of EnergyFirst, lists these reasons why health care costs are high and will continue to rise:

1. Value-shopping doesn’t exist

No one shops for the cheapest deal on a heart surgery or a discount pediatrician. When it comes to our health, we want the very best.

2. Medical technology evolves in expensive directions

Progress in all things goes one of two directions: we learn to do old things better and cheaper or we learn to do new things. Medical progress goes in the second direction. Thus, the $40,000 total knee replacement replaces the $5,000 knee fusion, which replaced the $10 cane.

New drugs are even worse, thanks to patent protection

3. Wealthy people use more health care

Wealthy people demand more and better health care than middle-class and lower-income people do. And wealthy people have higher expectations of health care, so they drive change.

Our grandparents lived with arthritis, dieted and wore glasses. We get joint replacements, stomach-stapling, and Lasik eye correction.

4. It’s easy to spend money when it’s not yours

Sad but true: if we paid the full cost of our health care, we’d pay more attention to costs. But when Blue Cross or Aetna’s paying, we don’t care as much.

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Gerry Morton, CEO of EnergyFirst, recommends that you take the following steps to make the shift from roasted nuts to healthier raw nuts and seeds:

5.  Aging Baby Boomers

The biggest generation in history is now in their 40’s and 50’s, and older people have greater healthcare needs.  An aging population drives up healthcare spending.

Added to this is the fact that boomers have greater expectations about quality of life and of health care than previous generations…they’re not content to quit sports and take up shuffleboard, not by a long shot.

6. Uninsured patients eat up expensive trauma care

When families who are not well off have a sick child, they can’t just call the pediatrician because they don’t have one. Instead, they crowd in the Emergency Rooms even though their children could be treated much less expensively with better primary care.

Worse yet, lack of inexpensive primary care means more kids grow up with medical problems that get harder to fix as they progress.

7.  People won’t change unhealthy lifestyles

Most Americans still eat too much, smoke too much, drink too much, and exercise far too little, despite repeated warnings. Health care due to intentional recklessness like overeating, overdrinking and smoking is expensive…and entirely preventable.

8. Success leads to more costs

When people are miraculously treated for heart disease or cancer, they go on to die of something else or they die of the same thing later.   Spending lots of money on end-of-life care is the right and compassionate thing to do, but saving lives does lead to additional costs.

9.  Lawsuits

Due to lawsuits and the high cost of malpractice insurance, most doctors now practice "defensive medicine."   Avoiding lawsuits involves over treating all kinds of ailments. It’s a good strategy, but expensive.

With health care costs rising, it makes good sense to put some serious time and money into getting healthy and fit.

More tips on how you can increase fitness and get healthier can be found by visiting Effective Exercise.