Obamacare and your Wallet

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/12/health-reform?zid=318&ah=ac379c09c1c3fb67e0e8fd1964d5247f A website entitled "healthcare.gov" was set up by the government for people in 36 states to compare health insurance rates and policies. Many are complaining about to major downsides to these health insurance plans. One of which, being the biggest negative, is the increased co-pay that is required to "activate" insurance. As healthcare increases in price, so does insurance. Another negative people are disagreeing on is the narrowing coverage of insurance. Health care companies are doing this because of the constant increase in health care as well. I see Obamacare and health care prices as being the biggest contradiction. Clearly, Obamacare isn't going to continue to be as effective as healthcare prices rise. I think the government needs to put a limit on healthcare costs rather than just trying to make it more available to everyone at one time. Many people don't understand that health care is constantly rising. It's shady in a way. It's constantly rising because people don't really have a choice as to what they pay; they also don't have knowledge as to why it's rising.

Slow and Steady, for Now

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/01/health-spending?zid=318&ah=ac379c09c1c3fb67e0e8fd1964d5247f This article is mainly talking about the uncertainty of why health spending is slowing down so dramatically. Apparently this slowdown has been going on since early 2012. Spending only rose 3.7% to $2.8 trillion, according to economist.com. The main problem was that, in 2012, healthcare grew more slowly than the economy grew; this is obviously a downturn for the economy as a whole. Economists main question is; is the slowdown of health spending "merely a cyclical blip?" According to the Congressional Budget Office, this is threatening the long term economic health. Your next question is probably "why such a slowdown?" There's clearly not one specific answer to this question. However, the current recession we face accounts for 37% of health spending. Another factor is that health care is rising, as always, so many people are buying the cheapest health care they can find which in turn makes them pay more for Dr. visits which then leads to less trips to the Dr.'s office. Hard thinking isn't necessarily required to answer why healthcare slowed down so much; in my opinion anyways. Health care is becoming outrageous in its pricing. Price for health care rises so consistently that it's hard for many people to keep up, especially considering our current economic state. Something i don't quite understand is why the health care economy isn't "at its best." So much money is pumped into the health care system from taxes and what not; how is it that they're not getting "enough" money?