{"id":1998,"date":"2026-09-17T05:38:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T05:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1998"},"modified":"2026-09-17T05:38:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T05:38:35","slug":"making-health-insurance-affordable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationallogisticspost.com\/?p=1998","title":{"rendered":"Making Health Insurance Affordable"},"content":{"rendered":"
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H<\/span>ealth insurance costs are at the heart of our current consumer financial \u201ccrisis.\u201d A recent\u00a0poll\u00a0asked 2533 Americans what to do about unaffordability. Fifty-nine percent responded, \u201cgovernment should limit healthcare prices to make care more affordable.\u201d In other words, Washington should impose price controls on services, goods, and insurance in healthcare. Even states like Indiana and Vermont are considering\u00a0price caps\u00a0to address the problem.<\/p>\n

Read more Fixing the Right to Repair<\/a><\/p>\n

Unaffordability in healthcare is certainly not new.\u00a0Insurance rates\u00a0have been rising 2-3 times the rate of inflation for the past 25 years. While median household income doubled from 2000 to 2025, insurance prices\u00a0quadrupled. Drug prices behaved similarly, priced beyond all but the fattest of pocketbooks. Furthermore, increased\u00a0drug costs contribute to the rise in insurance prices.\u00a0(RELATED: Health Insurance Costs Are Soaring. Here\u2019s Why)<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Americans don\u2019t care who broke it. They don\u2019t care who fixes it. They just want prices to come down, NOW!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

Affordability is now touted as a \u201ccrisis.\u201d The party out of power, Democrats, can use it as a political bludgeon against the ascendant Republicans. Americans don\u2019t care who broke it. They don\u2019t care who fixes it. They just want prices to come down, NOW! Last year, healthcare costs, mostly insurance, consumed\u00a0 per family. In 2026, those costs are projected to increase another 7.9 percent to $37,824\u00a0for a family of four.<\/p>\n

In the poll above, respondents were presumably referring to\u00a0consumer\u00a0<\/em>prices \u2014 what a consumer pays and not the prices that third parties pay. The following analysis focuses solely on the consumer, using \u201cprice\u201d to indicate what an average consumer pays out of pocket.<\/p>\n

There are two ways to control consumer prices: centrally or dispersed (decentralized). Central economic control means government fixing of prices as practiced in the now-defunct U.S.S.R. Central price fixing is currently in use in North Korea, Cuba, and seems to be coming to our own New York City per newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u2019s plans, viz., government grocery stores. (RELATED: Why Healthcare Price Transparency Will Fail)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Central control in healthcare means the government sets an arbitrary, presumably low and therefore affordable, consumer price for a drug, a doctor visit, or an insurance policy. The manufacturer, provider, or seller must adjust cost structure to compensate for reduced revenue. Manufacturers can cut spending on goods or labor, thereby reducing quality. Providers can increase billing by seeing more patients per hour and thereby spending less time with each patient. Insurance companies can reduce benefits covered and\/or payments to providers. Failure to adequately lower their cost of doing business will result in the manufacturer, provider, or insurance company spending money more than they take in. That will drive them out of business since, unlike Washington, private entities cannot print money.<\/p>\n

History confirms the following\u00a0effects\u00a0of government price controls: low quality, shortages, slow service, lack of innovation, and black markets. These economic consequences exist today in the countries mentioned above that have central economic controls.<\/p>\n

Read more First Toddler Euthanized in the Netherlands<\/a><\/p>\n

In the same\u00a0survey where 59 percent favored price controls, 29 percent recognized the dangers noted previously. They feared that \u201cgovernment price controls could reduce access to care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second way to control prices is dispersed, a free market, where consumers control their own spending. They decide what to pay and to whom. In such a market, sellers must lower their prices to meet consumers\u2019 willingness to pay, or consumers won\u2019t buy from the higher-priced seller and will find one with a lower price. Instead of a single\u00a0controller<\/em>\u00a0of prices, viz., Washington, a free market in the U.S. would have 340 million price\u00a0controllers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Disease-curing and life-extending medical miracles produced in the past 50 years are costly to produce. While a free market will dramatically lower prices, medical care, especially high-tech, will remain expensive. Consumers still need enough money to pay the $700 for an MRI even though it used to cost $2500. To have sufficient money to pay for care necessities and catastrophic insurance will require a single act of Congress: repeal of the last remnant of the 1942 Economic Stabilization Act.<\/p>\n

At the start of World War II, Congress froze all prices and wages. Employers could not pay more to recruit, retain, or reward workers. To allow employers to compensate workers without paying full, competitive wages, Congress included an accommodation called employer-sponsored health insurance benefit (ESHI). This allowed employers to pay, tax-free, for employees\u2019 health insurance in lieu of paying full wages.<\/p>\n

After WW II ended, all the freezes and accommodations in the Stabilization Act were repealed except one \u2013 ESHI. Thus, for more than 80 years, American employers have been sending money to insurance companies misnamed as \u201cemployer-sponsored\u201d because that is not the employer\u2019s money. It is wages earned by employees but paid to an insurance company. In 2025, those diverted wages averaged $26,993\u00a0for each of 84 million Americans.<\/p>\n

By finally repealing ESHI, paying workers their full wages, and putting those funds in a new\u00a0\u00a0Americans will have sufficient funds to pay\u00a0tax-free<\/em> for their care and for catastrophic insurance. When consumers control their own spending, they will shop for care as they do for everything else. Sellers will lower their prices to make care affordable. Sellers who do not adjust their prices downward will find their waiting rooms and their bank accounts empty.<\/p>\n

Price controls, yes, but the\u00a0controller should be you, not Washington.<\/p>\n

READ MORE from Deane Waldman:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Health Insurance Costs Are Soaring. Here\u2019s Why<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why Healthcare Price Transparency Will Fail<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Wrong People Hold Health Care Purse Strings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Deane Waldman, M.D., MBA, is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Pathology, and Decision Science; former Director of the Center for Healthcare Policy at Texas Public Policy Foundation; founding Director of the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange; and author of multi-award-winning, \u201cBecome an Empowered\u00a0Patient.\u201d Follow him on\u00a0X.com@DrDeaneW\u00a0or visit website\u00a0www.empowerpatients.info.<\/p>\n

Read more The Spectacle Ep. 466: The 2026 College Football Season Has Begun, and It\u2019s Already a Banger<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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