An overview of the chief complaints, root causes, and possible solutions to the United States’ health insurance dilemma.
American health insurance seems to frustrate everyone. Patients complain that it’s expensive and complicated. Providers say it buries them in paperwork and can negatively affect patient care.
Poll after poll indicates that most people simply don’t trust their health insurance provider or the health care system itself. Fully 70 percent of the country thinks American health care has major problems or is in a state of crisis. Consumer satisfaction is at a 24-year low.
Frustration with health insurers may have turned to rage in a young man accused of murdering a UnitedHealthcare executive in New York on Dec. 4. The alleged killer appears to have been driven by an idea soon echoed on social media, that the woeful tale of American health care is a story with a villain, and the villain is health insurers.
Yet identifying a villain here is no simple matter.
The American health payment system is a ramshackle structure comprising public and private insurance plans offered by a host of providers across multiple states. Over many decades, the system has been layered with more legislative patches than the roof on your grandfather’s barn.
Despite the good intentions of lawmakers, regulators, countless health care workers, and insurance companies, health insurance remains expensive and confusing for the 92 percent of Americans who have it and for the 8 percent who don’t.
Despite its problems, many experts believe the health payment system can be improved. Some want to level the ground and build a new system from scratch. Others advocate refinements to make health insurance less expensive and more transparent. Any solution will require cooperation among a host of key players, including insurance companies, health care providers, state governments, and that most unpredictable of all institutions, the United States Congress.
Here’s an overview of the symptoms affecting the health care payment industry, some root causes, and cures suggested by industry analysts.
But first, here are the primary ways people get health insurance in the United States.
