Reader comments
Health-care reform vital for Utah, Huntsman says

Instead of feeding the buracracy of helth care why is nothing done to investigate excessive costs of health care? The stockmarket and investor profiting off of peoples illnesses and ailments and those needing health care should be eliminated. The cost of health care is directly related to profit for stock holders and investors over peoples needs. Feeding these investors and stockholders with tax funds does nothing to curb cost and further esclates the cost. To bring down health care costs we need laws to end this cycle of profiteering off the health of every individual. Health care cost escalated out of control when laws were changed to allow profiteering by these organizations. I for one am against any funding by the state to put our tax money in the pockets of investors and not in health care cost reduction. To keep funding this group is a never ending cycle of less and less health care and more waste of tax dollars. The problem with those running government is they have vested financial interests in maintaining these organizations.

Bob G: A big part of this plan is to investigate the excessive costs of health care. By making the system more transparent, consumers will know exactly what they are paying for and the price all the different insurance companies are charging. Transparency will lead to more competition and competition will lead to lower prices, much like Blue Book did for used cars and the internet has done for so many other industries.(I assume you are referring to insurance companies when you say "the stockmarket and investor profiting").

Good job Governor Huntsman--keep it up!

It's a no brainer why costs of health-care are up. Since I work/live within this sector I can tell you a few.

1. Those who are non-insured don't pay their bills. In turn, the hospitals/doctors eat those up. Which in turn, increase their fees. Ini other words, YOU are paying for those who are uninsured by having these costs rise.

2. Sue-happy people. Sueing doctors for malpractice or people suing drug companies, those costs get passed down to the consumers by malpractice insurance premiums rising faster than the rates of health care. Costs are drug production is directly linked to those who sue the manufacturers.

If you fix these two problems, I am certain the cost of healthcare will drop, drastically. Investors play very little role in this siutation.

The largest driver of health cost is utilization, not the uninsured or sue-happy people. I agree with will_a, if consumers knew how much things cost they could make better choices. Cost and Quailty information would make a change.

If you knew you could save $100 and get the same quality care by driving ten minutes more down the freeway would you do it?

Problems in health care...

1) Heavy regulation on the medical industry.
2) Inability to import cheaper drugs from other countries (see regulation)
3) health "insurance" (payment plans) that insulation the client from the actual costs of the care he/she is seeking. Hospitals must already play games with prices due to the requirement to subsidize uninsured/non-payers/illegal aliens.
4) Attitude of the public, "gimme a pill" quick fix is not cheap and usually doesn't fix the root of the problem. Doctors reflect this attitude of the public and give us what we want, the 'fix'. This leads to over prescription of medication and treatments that are often unnecessary - which increase costs.
5) Pervasive presence of life-style disease, obesity, heart disease, cancer, hypothyroidism, and the list is growing.