Why Health Insurance Premiums Keep Rising — and What It Says About Our System

TL;DR: Health insurance premiums are going up not because people are getting sicker, but because our healthcare system waits until they do.

The Rising Cost of “Health” Care

Health insurance premiums are set to rise again in 2025, some by the largest margin in a decade. The explanations sound technical: hospital costs, new high-cost drugs, and greater utilization. But beneath those factors lies a deeper structural issue.

Our healthcare system is reactive by design. It doesn’t reward prevention, early detection, or long-term health maintenance. Instead, it waits for symptoms to worsen, conditions to escalate, and care to become urgent, all of which drive up costs exponentially.

The Cost of Waiting

When care is delayed, costs multiply. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and obesity — all largely preventable with early intervention — now account for the majority of healthcare spending in the U.S.

This creates a vicious cycle:

• People postpone care until they’re sick
  
  
• Treating advanced illness becomes more expensive
  
  
• Insurers raise premiums to offset higher claims
  
  
• The system continues to reward reactivity over prevention
  
  

It’s an unsustainable model that punishes the well-intentioned and underfunds proactive care.

A Better Path Forward

A proactive healthcare system would look entirely different. It would:

• Catch risk factors early through advanced labs and screenings
  
  
• Support preventive interventions that improve longevity and quality of life
  
  
• Invest in care teams that guide patients continuously, not episodically
  
  

At The Lanby, we’ve built our model around that vision — combining functional medicine, primary care, and wellness under one roof. Our care teams track your health data over time, address root causes, and empower members to take meaningful steps toward long-term wellness.

Prevention Is the Only Sustainable Solution

The irony is that prevention costs far less than treatment, yet our system continues to fund the latter. Until that changes, premiums will keep climbing, not because people are less healthy, but because the system still waits for them to become sick before it acts.

At The Lanby, we believe the only way to bend the cost curve is to change the sequence: care first, illness later — if at all.

Interested in learning how proactive, continuous care can replace reactive medicine? Book a complimentary consult call with our team.