Consequences of Increased Third-Party Payments for Health Care Services

The growth of third-party programs to pay the costs of health care has occurred in an unplanned manner. As a result, the country presently is faced with a number of uncoordinated payment programs that sometimes work against each other. While the expansion of health insurance programs has provided the financing necessary to keep our health care system up-to-date, and while such programs doubt lessly have reduced the financial barriers to seeking health care for some population segments, health insurance also has produced some problems. Generally, the contribution of health insurance to these problems is subtle and cannot be quantified. Yet, policymakers increasingly are recognizing that there are factors at work in our health care system that, if continued unabated, will exacerbate the country's health care cost problem. Many of these factors owe their existence to the socially unacceptable incentives provided by most health insurance programs. This article focuses on some of the adverse consequences of health insurance programs and indicates that the future of private health insurance depends upon how these problems are addressed.