On August 11, I participated in a statewide “conversation” about California health care reform, organized by CaliforniaSpeaks.org. (Click on the link if you’re interested.)

One of the facts that struck me was the following from the participant guide, under “Health care costs are growing faster than inflation”:

Health care costs in California have grown dramatically in the past twenty years and are now likely to be over $200 billion. In 2005, as in other recent years, health care insurance premiums in California grew much faster than wages or inflation.

The graphic showed a 4% inflation rate for 2005, accompanied by a 4.5% growth in wages, and an 8.2% increase in health care premiums. Further on, the guide stated that most of the increase was due to increased costs for prescription medicines, followed by administrative costs.

The problem with this comparison is as follows:

(1) How much of the administration cost increase is the result of increased regulation?

(2) Is the prescription medicine cost comparison restricted to the same formularies, or does the most recent cost include new medicines that were not previously available?

Just wondering if they’re comparing apples to apples. I’m sure if we retrogressed to ’70′s or ’80′s or even ’90′s health care, we would have more disposable income. Do we want to?