Why is health care in America so expensive, and how can we address it?

In case you’ve ever questioned why well being care in the USA is so costly, you’re not alone.

It typically strains the finances of households and companies alike. In 2019, U.S. well being care spending grew 4.6 p.c, rising to $11,582 per particular person¹. To place that into perspective, in 2019, the typical American family spent $8,169 on groceries and going to eating places². That’s proper, well being care prices extra per particular person than the fee to feed a whole family for a 12 months.

At Blue Cross and Blue Protect of North Carolina, we imagine that well being care needs to be accessible and inexpensive for not solely our members, however for all North Carolinians. We additionally know that for well being care to be inexpensive, we first should tackle the underlying prices. Due to that, we’re devoted to understanding the why behind the prices so we will work in the direction of decreasing them.

Addressing well being care value in our nation is not any small feat. It requires vital motion, together with setting the fitting well being care insurance policies at each the federal and state degree.

Let’s discuss 4 key elements that affect value, then have a look at how coverage can be utilized to deal with well being care value.