Healthcare Cost Containment?

If you see any real healthcare cost containment going on, please let me (and the rest of the country) know.

Each year some major consulting firms and others conduct their annual healthcare cost studies, and while the trends seemed to be moving toward slightly lower annual increases (down to the upper single digits, from the low double digit percentage annual increases), the last two studies I've seen are predicting roughly 10% annual increases in healthcare cost for 2009 and 2010, in the middle of major a major recession with virtually no (non-healthcare) inflation!

For instance the Buck Consultants 20th National Health Care Trend Survey is predicting between 10% and 11% annual increases (depending on plan type) for 2009 and 2010. In other words, while wages are are flat to down in real (post-inflation) terms and companies suffering from falling sales and profits, somehow, healthcare can increase 10% in cost.

I've been reading about how many consumers are delaying going to the doctor, and not electing to have elective procedures done, but costs still go up 10%? Somewhere I recall hearing about this concept called "the law of supply and demand," but apparently I was mistaken about that!

Healthcare costs for employers have more than doubled since the turn of the century and employee's out-of-pocket cost have tripled. Healthcare is slowly bankrupting our country.

I'm not a fan of government intervention in the free market, or of government-provided healthcare, but something has to be done. In 1980, healthcare was about 9% of GDP, and in 2009 it will be approximately 18%. We're heading toward 20% of GDP being spent on healthcare in this country within a few years. Yes, you read correctly, one out of every five dollars spent in this country, will be spent on healthcare alone.