The Problems Facing Modern American Healthcare
One critical area to consider is how our country and our government currently handles health insurance providers. Earlier this year, one of the biggest talking points in the healthcare debate was about how many insurance companies were pulling out of the ACA entirely. This piece from The Atlantic gives a brief overview of what happened in a few states, from Iowa (where ACA exchange shoppers were left with only one insurance provider to choose from) to Tennessee (where residents were temporarily left with no ACA insurance options).
The situations described in the Atlantic piece illustrate what are arguably the two biggest problems in health insurance right now. First off, when people shopping the ACA exchange only have one health insurance option to choose from in their states, it essentially creates a government-granted monopoly. Monopolies, of course, are dangerous because they have full control over pricing. Without competition to keep prices down, ACA’s exchanges risk becoming the very opposite of affordable.
