What’s described as a “health care affordability crisis” continues in California, as well as the rest of the country. And the CEO of Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital agrees. Doctor Scott Neeley blames the escalating bills for patients on a number of factors…..

click to listen to Dr. Neeley

Doctor Neeley also mentions that advances in technology are a mixed blessing. That includes the growing use of robots, which patients have been clamoring for. So he says hospitals have been under pressure to purchase more…

click to listen to Dr. Neeley

But Neeley says insurance companies continue to control what the costs and charges in health care like no other industry. Another report, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, shows that household health spending has grown twice as fast as wages and medical inflation is one and a half times greater than general inflation. Meanwhile, private premiums and deductibles have steadily increased in the past decade in California, equaling 10-and-a-half percent of the median household income in 2020.