The cost of health insurance has been increasing, typically
at
double-digit annual rates.
With the expansion of information technology, particularly electronic
claims processing, one would expect that the insurance companies would
be operating much more efficiently now that they were ten years ago.
Perhaps they are. Some would insist that they certainly are
more efficient that any government program could ever be.
However, take a look at these data:
I had to shrink it a bit to fit, so it is hard to read.
Let me explain. In the past ten years, the number
of persons employed in the USA increased by 12%. The number
of persons employed as health care providers increased by 26%.
But the employment in the health insurance industry grew by a
WTF 52%!
In 1997, health insurance companies employed a total of 293,000
persons. By 2007, that number has increased to 444,000.
(
href="http://www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_snapshots_20070919">Source)
As the article points out, the growth is in people handling (i.e. finding ways to deny) claims.
thanks