Health insurance premiums for South Carolina families rose 5.7 times faster than earnings between 2000 and 2007, according to a report released Thursday.
Annual premiums for family health coverage provided through the workplace rose from $6,600 to $11,624, an increase of 76.1 percent. Meanwhile, median earnings increased from $23,057 to $26,140, or 13.4 percent.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a national nonpartisan group based in Washington, D.C., said, “What is so surprising about these numbers is that these premiums purchased thinner coverage.”
What will all these health insurers do when the government takes over health insurance? It seems like it would be in their best interest to figure a way to hold prices in check because they are about to be nationalized if they keep this up. Are the CEOs that obtuse that they do not realize the peril that their industry faces by these outrageous premium increases? The insurance industry should be first in line fighting for tort reform, malpractice reform, ensuring bad doctors don’t get to keep practicing medicine, and fighting fraud, waste, and abuse…like $5 for a single aspirin, etc.
Oh well, Obamacare here we come.
I was watching a Mr. Bean video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSHdj-jqDeM ] the other day. It was a humorous jab at socialized medicine. They had to wait in line to get a numbered ticket, to sit and wait for their health care needs. This is our future, unless the insurance industry corrects the situation. BTW, I don’t think that health care providers will benefit from the single payer socialized medicine. Look for stagnating wages, longer hours, and fewer workers. The quality of health care will decline dramatically.
My private (non workplace provided) health care premiums are $20k per year. I actually wrote the state of NJ insurance department when they went from 11k to 14k (I’ve given up on all the increases since). There reply was that the law requires that the company pay out some percentage of what they take in in premiums (I forget what it was, but something like 75%) and as long as that’s what they’re doing, the premium can rise infinitely. So the insurance company would say “well, we’re just raising premiums to meet rising cost.” Here’s the real question — why do Americans pay up to 3 X for health care than Europeans and get, on a number of measures, worse health care in return?
The reason is because those with insurance pay for everybody else.
Champus pays below cost.
Medicare pays below cost
Medicaid pays below cost
Self insured pays, but most default and on average pay below cost.
Twenty years ago 70% of folks seen in the ER had private insurance. Ten years ago it was 50%. Five years ago it was 30% Currently it is 24% and dropping. If 25% of people (usually the healthiest) pay for 100% of care (especially for the unhealthiest), then as fewere people have private insurance, the costs go up for everybody else. In a recession folks lose their health insurance. Thus, everybody who still has health insurance pays more. The hospitals and physicians are required to see anybody who comes in the ER whether or not they can pay. The money to keep the hospitals open comes from somewhere. That would be folks who have insurance.
The numbers on “self pay” have increased dramatically since January, and have sky rocketed since July.
That is why health insurance premiums are going up. (Mine went up also, and my sister is now on COBRA since losing her job).
That is the nature of a recession.
And the reason that we pay so much for health care is that we don’t. Only those with insurance pay for health care. Those on medicaid get if free. They like it that way. Those on medicare get it all but free. They like that too. Europe pays for her health care with high taxes, and by rationing care for the elderly and disabled. We don’t. We probably will have to do so soon, but right now that is not considered an option, and the entire health care system (currently rapidly going bankrupt) will probably go the way of Bear Sterns before it is reformed.
“BTW, I don’t think that health care providers will benefit from the single payer socialized medicine. Look for stagnating wages, longer hours, and fewer workers. The quality of health care will decline dramatically. ”
Already coming true and we have had falling real wages (after expenses) for the past 10 years in Medicine. People who go into medicine or nursing now are fools. But given the fact that the majority of patients have government insurance paid for by those who have private insurance, we essentially have socialized medicine anyway.
No, my point was not “why do I pay so much more” it’s that we — collectively — as Americans pay in actual dollars per capita a staggeringly higher amount for health care than anybody else in the world. And, contrary to one of our beloved mantras (“we have the best health care in the world”) we do NOT have the best health care in the world.
We do have the best health care in the world if you are over 80. No other nation keeps their oldsters tuned and going nearly so well. Our survival rate after cancer or heart attack is better than anybody elses.
We also have the best health care in the world if you are a premie infant. One of the reason our life expectancy statistics is so poor is because we agressivly try to save all premies. Most other countries don’t even record their lives. Most places, a child who is born premature is counted as a still birth, even if he lives a few weeks. That improves their life expectancy (after birth) while dragging down ours.
What we do not have is universal preventive and ordinary care for most people. That is actually the cheapest care to provide, and if we were to shift our focus from the extremes of illness and age, to ordinary healthy folks, we would indeed have a much cheaper system, and one in which our “numbers” looked a whole lot better.
We would probably have less whining about how expensive it all was also, if we simply (sadly) told folks over 50 who need dialysis that (alas) they don’t qualify under the “guidelines” as occurs in the UK.
But relax. The same “evidence based guidelines” are being developed for the US, and will soon be coming to a hospital near you. Getting everybody on a electronic record (our hospital goes all electronic on November 4, and my prior hospital went all electronic in July) is just the first step.
Trust me. In 10 years time our medical system will be every bit as good as that in the Netherlands.
Clueless — please present evidence to support what you are saying. In the U.S. we pay $4,178 per capita for our health care. This is more than twice the very nearest next expensive country (Australia) which pays $2,043. A very large percentage of that is sucked up in administrative waste in our multiple-payer, layered, jumbled up health care system and our for-profit insurance companies and hospitals. Yet we rank 29th in infant mortality (please present evidence that the Germans, Australians, etc. do not try to save preemies and do not even record them as being born alive.) And we rank 13th for life expectancy.
I’m sorry — notwithstanding the totally outrageous sums we spend on health care, we do NOT in fact “have the best health care in the world.” A very very large percentage of the money we spend on “health care” does not, in fact, go towards “health care” in any way shape or form, but goes into the pockets of insurance companies.
I think one of the reasons we have such a bad health care system is that we’ve developed what amounts to a religious belief that “we have the best health care system in the world” and “single payer systems are communistic and result in old people and preemies being thrown on the ash heap.” Sorry, the statistics do not support that view. Right now health care is becoming a huge drain on the productivity and competitiveness of American industry. And it will continue to be until we bring coherence to the present chaos.
We have had this discussion multiple times. I presented the evidence previously.
Elves is there a way to call up my previous posts?
Well, not us personally. 🙂 Actually, the last time we personally “talked” I was supporting you in the divorce discussion. 🙂
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/5026
Here is one thread.
http://new.kendallharmon.net/wp-content/uploads/index.php/t19/article/10469
Here is another thread.
Personally the whole topic makes me ill. Obviously Obama is coming in. This whole mess is unstoppable. When euthanasia comes (under the rubric of “evidence based guidelines”) I will leave medicine. Until then, I will practice my art and save money while learning other trades. Actually I think I may become an electrician instead of a teacher.