One out of every four people with health insurance say they're struggling to pay health care costs, according to a new survey in HealthDay -- but one expert says that's not really surprising.
"In fact, President Obama, when he was advocating for the Affordable Care Act, said that was not going the be the case any longer," Health Care Finance Specialists CEO David Balat tells Newsradiio 74 KTRH.
"And when it turned out that the opposite was true, he came back and said, 'Well, we got that wrong.'
"So insurance has failed to perform its very role, in that it's essentially a transfer of risk," that's what an insurance company does, and "all they've done is pile more risk onto the patients."
Part of the problem is that many Americans who have insurance don't want to use it because out-o-f-pocket expenses are too high and sometimes so are co-pays -- and then there are high deductibles.
It all benefits the insurance companies who take on the risks of insuring people.
"You see continued year-over-year growth by those insurance companies, so it only makes sense that they're going to serve the interests of their shareholders because that's their primary objective."
And increasing calls for states such as Texas to expand Medicaid are sometimes misunderstood -- because Medicaid too serves insurance companies and their investors.
"Expansion of Medicaid doesn't really do a whole lot, as we've seen in the other states that have expanded Medicaid, for the patients themselves, but it does a lot of good for the insurance companies and their shareholders.