Why does medical care cost so much???

Question

Why is this area subject to the same greed factor as everyday life.

Answer 1

Roadkill is correct.
It has nothing to do with greed. That is the economically ignorant lazy answer.
.

Answer 2

All of the above plus with the improvement in the care available because of scientific advances people want and can benefit from more care. Most of the new drugs and procedures not only work better but they cost more than the old ones. As to greed, medical professionals are people just like everybody else.

Answer 3

Actually no. The reason health care is so expensive is because it is so heavily regulated and subsidized by government. The problems begain with medicare.

Which unleashed a large segment of society on government paid for health care. It wasn't long before the buget for medicare was blowing through the roof. (No cost incentive to control demand). To solve the problem government capped the payments to providers which pushed the cost of the program to everyone outside the government program.

It continues to this day. Health care providers continue to increase the charges to paying customers to cover patients they are required to treat at either no charge or at government regulated price levels below the cost of the service.

As the years go by the non-payers increase and the number of payers decrease. At the same time price incentives for controlling demand of services disappear and the prices to the payers continue to go up.

To make matters worse most payers obtain health care services through insurance, which means a third party pays. So virtually all price incentives to reduce demand have been removed. The rising cost of insurance reflects this but is indirect to the consumers of health care services and does not serve to reduce the demand but actually makes it worse. Because paying high insurance rates almost guarantees claims will be made.

No the problem doesn't have anything to do with normal market forces because the health care industry no longer operates in a free market but a heavily regulated and government controlled system that can't really be called a market of any kind.

Answer 4

Insurance. Aside from the high salaries earned by medical health care professionals, the big expense in the medical profession is the insurance that caregivers must pay. Caregivers are afraid of lawsuits. Although it's true that doctors do make mistakes, some of them fatal, the vast majority of medical procedures are successful and helpful. However, one lawsuit can cost a facility tens of millions of dollars. So insurance premiums are very high, and those costs are reflected in charges to patients.

Answer 5

Doctors pay a lot for liability insurance. To compensate for such a costly insurance, salaries are high and medical care is costly to pay those doctors.

Answer 6

Medical care costs so much so that the corporations who own drug companies, hospitals etc. can get ever richer.

Answer 7

because of TAX, Professional's fee, Time of the doctor,