ten the health of the entire population. Rising health costs mean lower wages, higher prices for goods and services, and higher taxes. The average worker today would be earning at least $1,000 more a year if health insurance costs had not risen faster than wages over the previous 15 years . If the cost of health care continues at the current pace, wages will be held down by an additional $650 by the year 2000. More and more Americans have had to give up insurance altogether because the premiums have become prohibitively expensive. Many small firms either cannot afford insurance at all in the current system, or have had to cut benefits or profits in order to provide insurance to their employees. Those problems are just with the system, the main part of the problem comes from the insurance agencies. Quality care means promoting good health. Yet, the agencies waits until people are sick before they starts to work. The agencies are biased towards specialty care and gives inadequate attentions to cost-effective primary and preventive care. Consumers cannot compare doctors and hospitals because reliable quality information is not available to them. Health care providers often don't have enough information on which treatments work best and are most cost-effective. Health care treatment patterns vary widely without detectable effects on health status. Some insurers now compete to insure the healthy and avoid the sick by determining "insurability profiles" while they should compete on quality, value, and service. The average doctor's office spends 80 hours a month pushing paper. Nurses often have to fill out as many as 19 forms to account for one person's hospital stay. This is time that could be better spent caring for patients. Insurance company red tape has created a nightmare for providers, with mountains of forms and numerous levels of review that wastes money and does nothing to improve the quality of care. America has the best doctors who...
