90% increase in the past decade? Guess who.

Hospital bills.

The Orlando Sentinel reported last week that hospital bills have increased 90% over the past decade.

"We have a sicker America," said Carmela Coyle, a senior vice president at the American Hospital Association in Washington, which represents 5,000 U.S. hospitals and medical providers and was not involved in the study.

The conditions with greater-than-average growth in billings were sepsis, chest pain, respiratory failure, back pain, osteoarthritis, irregular heartbeat, procedure complications, congestive heart failure, medical-device complications and diabetes, according to the report.

The article doesn't say if more people are needing hospital care or the care needed at hospitals is more expensive. Either way, it points to...a sicker America. That has repurcussions in a whole host of areas related to quality of life, global competitiveness, national debt, economic growth, budgets for education and infrastructure, etc, etc.

Link from Kelly Montgomery's Health Insurance blog.