Why is healthcare so expensive? Follow the money...

Ordinary working people know their health care costs are rising.  They see the effect on their budget when they need care.  They see the insurance premiums rising.  They see the introduction of "high-deductible" plans.

Why do costs keep rising so much?  It's a big jumble involving patients, doctors and the insurance companies. Figuring out who pays what and how much is a complicated mess.  Guess what?  Making things obscure is generally a tactic to help those who are the experts.  Who are the experts in this giant tangled mess?  The patients?  They are definitely not the experts in this system.  They generally see a doctor when they have some health care concerns, otherwise they are busy with their own lives.  Are the doctors the experts?  They specialize in medicine and treatment.  They provide the care, and most don't know much about the accounting side of things.  Are the insurance companies the experts?  They are the ones that sell the insurance, create the policies that determine how much is paid for which services, determine which services and procedures can be covered... gee, doesn't that sound exactly like the ones who know the most about the money?

Between patients, doctors and the insurance companies, who is paying more?  Patients are definitely paying more.  Doctors, however much we joke about them being highly paid, are actually not very rich as a whole.  All the general practitioners we have had are actually very humble.  Are insurance companies paying more?  They always say they are working to reduce your costs... but perhaps a stock chart is more truthful:

This stock chart shows UnitedHealth Group's stock price over the past several years.  It's risen quite a lot since the 2008 recession.  Why do investors like the stock?  Because they are making a lot of profit.  This chart is not unique to UNH - Aetna, CIGNA, Humana etc are all fairly similiar.

In conclusion: healthcare costs are rising, and health insurance companies are getting more profitable.  More money is coming out of people's pockets, and somehow it ends up making the insurance companies more profitable.  You figure out who is benefiting.