The cost of health care is going up for many Nevadans, and it's happening as open enrollment is underway for those on Medicaid.
New work requirements for Medicaid may affect the cost of health care for Nevadans.
The requirements will cause many people to get off Medicaid, but experts say the fewer people who have health insurance, the more costs will rise.
They say from a health care point of view, there's only so much that can be done to cover the costs when people drop their policies.
Gbenga Ajilore, the Chief Economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says, "Instead of putting it on the individual to keep costs low. It's on policymakers, both local, state, and federal policymakers, to make health insurance, you know, available to as many people as possible to increase access so that the more people are covered, the lower those premiums are going to be."
Experts say another reason for the rise in costs is hospitals needing to consolidate their departments.
Consolidating can cause facilities to become more profitable, especially when there are fewer health care workers available.
This is something that has been seen throughout the country since the pandemic.
Ajilore told us, "So, like hospital costs, physician costs, pharmaceutical drugs, and so I think one of the biggest drivers right now is the increase in hospital costs. Some people say that there's been a lot of consolidation of hospital facilities, and that led to a lot of the price increases."
They say that the rise in costs is pushing people who don't regularly use health care to drop it, but that raises the price for those who continue to be enrolled.
This is forcing employers who provide health care to find ways to balance out their costs with what they get back.
"When you have a lot of healthy people who have coverage and don't use as much, you're able to keep costs down, and so that's one of the problems with the premium tax credit enhancement. That subsidy going away, a lot of healthy people dropped out, causing costs to go up," said Ajilore.
Experts say the rise in costs for health insurance is something that is hard to predict and is based on the demand.
