July 5, 2006 |
Posted By Diane Pfadenhauer |
When Will the Cost of Family Health Coverage be More Than Your Salary?
Everyone thinks about the cost of health care in the United States and wonders if the increases will ever taper off. Joe Paduda over at Managed Care Matters has this post which was an eye opener for me. While, yes, I know health care is expensive and I understand compounding, but the thought of paying over $20,000 a year for family health coverage in a few years was eye-opening. I include his thought provoking comments here:
With family premiums (HMO and other plan types) hovering at the $11,000 mark, and rates increasing by, say, 7% per year, we'll have health insurance costs of $20,000 per family in ten years.
The 7% increase quoted is a wildly optimistic figure, as rates have increased at least 9% each year for the last five years. And, with the number of people without insurance increasing every year, further adding to cost-shifting to insureds; tighter eligibility requirements for Medicaid; and increased employee cost-sharing the middle class (read - voters) will be increasingly demanding action - and if the next presidential election does not have health care as a top theme, it will only be because of a horrendous natural or man-made disaster. Although one could reasonably consider the US health care system a man-made disaster, I'm thinking more on the order of foreign policy. What does this mean for you? More pain before our elected officials get their collective act together.
Joe makes a good point. This is a death spiral/perfect storm for our health system. Sometimes our leaders would have us think that social issues, with little economic consequence, are the most important issues facing the nation. The reality is that we all have differing opinions on many of those issues, but they should not cloud the reality that we have significant issues, such as health care, to face as a nation.
With family premiums (HMO and other plan types) hovering at the $11,000 mark, and rates increasing by, say, 7% per year, we'll have health insurance costs of $20,000 per family in ten years.
The 7% increase quoted is a wildly optimistic figure, as rates have increased at least 9% each year for the last five years. And, with the number of people without insurance increasing every year, further adding to cost-shifting to insureds; tighter eligibility requirements for Medicaid; and increased employee cost-sharing the middle class (read - voters) will be increasingly demanding action - and if the next presidential election does not have health care as a top theme, it will only be because of a horrendous natural or man-made disaster. Although one could reasonably consider the US health care system a man-made disaster, I'm thinking more on the order of foreign policy. What does this mean for you? More pain before our elected officials get their collective act together.
Joe makes a good point. This is a death spiral/perfect storm for our health system. Sometimes our leaders would have us think that social issues, with little economic consequence, are the most important issues facing the nation. The reality is that we all have differing opinions on many of those issues, but they should not cloud the reality that we have significant issues, such as health care, to face as a nation.
