Rising North Dakota Health Insurance & Health Care Costs

Rising health care costs

In America, we demand the best health care, and we receive it. A growing portion of our health care dollar is spent on new medical technologies and block-buster drugs, all designed to help us live healthier, longer lives. North Dakotans are fortunate to have an extraordinarily high standard of health care, with excellent hospitals, clinics, physicians and care-givers, using the best of today's medical technology. The costs involved in developing, purchasing and providing better medical technologies and pharmaceuticals are passed on to us, the health care consumers, primarily through our insurance.

Overhead costs for health care providers continue to climb. Liability and medical malpractice insurance rates have skyrocketed in recent years. These costs are passed to us, the health care consumers.

Indeed, a more-prevalent threat of malpractice litigation has itself changed the way many caregivers practice medicine today. This, too, increases our health care costs. Cost-effectiveness should be a primary factor considered by physicians when ordering medical tests and procedures. However, increasingly, physicians feel pressured to practice "defensive" medicine, which might include ordering any tests and procedures necessary to protect themselves from potential malpractice claims, no matter the cost. We all help pay for those additional tests and procedures.

Who is affected by rising costs?

We all share in the costs of more expensive health care being provided to more and more people. Specifcally, however, small businesses and individual health insurance consumers face particular challenges.

Small businesses

More than 175 million American workers and retirees receive health care benefts through their employers. As businesses face increases in health care beneft costs, their bottom lines are adversely affected. Increases generally have been steeper for small businesses because they insure fewer people.