This Houston Chronicle story, "Health Care Costs: This Might Hurt" reads like a murder mystery.  It is heavy on facts (e.g., the average cost for local health-care coverage is expected to increase by 6.9% next year), but short on explanations:

Several factors are driving the increase in health-insurance costs, according to Aon Hewitt. Slower hiring has resulted in an older work force that is more likely to have expensive medical conditions, which is driving up the cost and number of catastrophic claims.

Furthermore, the increase in diabetes and heart disease is making it difficult for employers to devise ways to cut costs on a short-term basis, according to Aon Hewitt.

...

"In what continues to be an uncertain economic environment, organizations cannot afford health-care costs growing at 7 percent each year," according to a statement from John Zern, executive vice president and the Americas practice director for health and benefits with Aon Hewitt.

"While health-care reform continues to represent potential systemic change in a few years, employers will continue to shift cost to employees in order to keep company costs to a manageable level."

Obamacare represents "potential systemic change."  That is one way to put it.  But, it does not tell us what it is going to do to costs.  What about Obamacare's mandates on new coverage, its 2.3% medical device excise tax,  its health insurance provider tax, its expansion of Medicaid, or its premium and cost share subsidies?  All of these provisions will increase the cost of health insurance.  None of them will reduce its cost.  Obamacare is a major factor in the rapid increases we are seeing in health insurance premiums.   

Americans are certainly getting older.  As the population ages, the demand for health care grows.  If demand outpaces supply, costs will increase.  This is economics 101.  Demand is outpacing supply because health care consumers are insulated from the costs of health care.  That is the point of insurance, but it is disrupting the marketplace for health care.  The bigger problem is the lack of any price transparency between the suppliers and the end consumers.  This should be the focus of the health care reform that replaces Obamacare.  In the meantime, health insurance costs will continue to rise.

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