AXIOS January 17, 2020
Private health insurance is a conduit for exploding health care spending, and there’s no end in sight.
The big picture: Most politicians defend this status quo, even though prices are soaring. And as the industry’s top executives and lobbyists gathered this week in San Francisco, some nodded to concerns over affordability — but then went on to tell investors how they plan to keep the money flowing.
Where it stands: More than 160 million Americans get private insurance through an employer or on their own, and per-person spending in that market rose by almost 7% in 2018, the highest annual growth rate in 14 years.
- “Prices are definitely going up,” Owen Tripp, CEO of health...