Yesterday I received what was either a Halloween trick or extortion: a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield notifying me of a 24% rate increase starting January 2010. Quite simply, this is price gouging per se. Since this is a financial media site, I thought it would be educational to demonstrate how such unreasonable price inflation is completely unsustainable: At the current pace, on my 54th birthday I can look forward to spending over $1 million a year on healthcare (but my bank will be broken many years earlier). I can already hear the Blue Cross Blue Shield rebuttal now: "The average rate increase is 11% and your increases will not be as high in the future." Well, since I have a sweet file in my basement, I found that 1) I have never had less than an 11% increase, and 2) I recently had an increase of 18%. Those are huge numbers considering wages are not growing (I am lucky enough to be making money), we are in a recession, and there is absolutely no low-risk investment vehicle which can consistently match those type of returns in order to keep up.