In spite of government attempts to control health care costs, they continue to rise. A recent poll done by Politico and the Harvard School of Public Health found that 54 percent of adult Americans believe that health care costs are a serious problem in the United States. (here)

The researchers conducted telephone interviews (both landlines and mobile phones) with 1,000 adult Americans, including Republicans, Democrats, and independents. The findings were interesting, but not surprising.

The majority of those interviewed blame drug manufactures (79%), insurance companies (75%), hospitals (74%), doctors (66%), the federal government (64%), and people not taking good enough care of themselves (58%). At the bottom of the list were patients seeking health care that they often do not need (33%) and patients not taking responsibility to find the lowest-cost health care (31%).

The results of the poll show a fundamental lack of understanding on the part of Americans of the economics of the U.S. health care system. The basic difference between health care compared to other economic activities is the third-party payer system. The overwhelming majority of health care in this country is paid for by employers or the government, with money channeled through heavily regulated insurance companies. In other economic activities, consumers pay directly for a product or service and consequently become savvy shoppers who can take advantage of marketplace competition. In health care, patients are largely barred from shopping and have become isolated from true costs they incur.

Consequently, Americans view the drug companies, the insurance companies, and providers as the cause of ever-increasing health care costs. Competition is what improves quality, while decreasing costs, in every other economic area. If patients, not employers or the government, could control their own health care dollars in a free and open market place, competition would drive costs down while maintaining quality.

Patients are the most important part of the health care equation. Disinterested government bureaucrats should get out of the way and allow patients, as consumers of health care, the right to access care just as they do with the other necessities of life, like food, shelter, and clothing.