Health care costs have been rising for years. Expenditures in the United States on health care surpassed $2 trillion in 2006, almost three times the $714 billion spent in 1990, and over eight times the $253 billion spent in 1980. Stemming this growth has become a major policy priority, as employers and consumers increasingly struggle to keep up with health care costs.
Below are some statistics about the high price of basic health care:
1. In 2006, U.S. health care spending was about $7,026 per resident and accounted for 16% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Total health care expenditures grew at an annual rate of 6.7 percent in 2006, outpacing inflation and the growth in national income. In almost every employer survey, the rising cost of providing health care to employees is the top concern. Facing pressure to increase or just maintain profit margins, employers feel increasingly stressed to provide quality employee health care at an affordable cost.
Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose by 6.1 percent in 2007. The annual premium for an employer health plan covering a family of four averaged nearly $12,100. The annual
premium for single coverage averaged over $4,400.
2. Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers. Unless something changes dramatically, health insurance costs will overtake profits by 2008.
3. In 2005, employer health insurance premiums increased by 9.2% – nearly three times the rate of inflation.
4. Since 2000, employment-based health insurance premiums have increased 100 percent, compared to cumulative inflation of 24 percent and cumulative wage growth of 21 percent during the same period.
5. Workers are now paying $1,400 more in premiums annually for family coverage than they did in 2000.
6. In a Wall Street Journal-NBC Survey almost 50 percent of the American public cite the cost of health care as the number one economic concern. Continue reading Key Facts about the Cost of Health Care in the US
Tag Archives: hospital
Help! I Need Affordable Health Insurance
The statistics are startling when it comes to the amount of uninsured Americans. So what do you do if you don’t have a job and can’t get affordable health insurance – either individually or for your family? Or if you have a job but still cannot afford the health insurance offered by an employer? There are options for finding more affordable health insurance.
There are low cost health insurance options out there that, in fact, many Americans have already implemented and are beating the rising battle against being uninsured.
Top 10 Ways to Find Affordable Health Insurance
1. COBRA
A good place to start looking for affordable health insurance is with the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA). If you are not employed you may be eligible to continue your previous employers’ health insurance through COBRA. This also applies to children going off to college… you may be able to continue on your parent’s insurance coverage through COBRA. This is a good option for people who may have lost their job and are still undergoing medical treatments. WARNING! This will not be an affordable health insurance option. The premiums will be much higher. It is best to gather all your available health insurance options first and then pick the best health insurance plan for you.
2. Worker’s Compensation Insurance
Sometimes, you don’t need to look far for affordable health insurance. Many people don’t realize that they may be covered under their state’s Workers’ Compensation program. If you are being treated for any work related injury, your employer must offer you treatment under their Workers’ Compensation program.
3. Medicaid
Medicaid is often overlooked as an affordable health insurance option. Some think if have a job, they won’t qualify for Medicaid. Medicaid will pay health care expenses for low-income families and individuals. Each state sets the eligibility requirements. If you are working and still don’t have enough to buy affordable health insurance, it doesn’t cost you to see if you or your children qualify for Medicaid, so it is always best to check Medicaid first before moving on to the next options. And, there is good news about Medicaid… more states are adding health care benefits for low-income families so if you don’t qualify now, keep informed of your state’s Medicaid and health insurance laws because you may qualify in the future.
4. Medicare
Most people know if they qualify for Medicare or not, but I need to add it to the list just to make sure it is not overlooked as an affordable health insurance choice. Medicare is provided by the government and administered by the Social Security Administration. If you are sixty-five years old or older you would qualify for Medicare. You may also qualify if you are getting Social Security disability benefits.
5. State High Risk Health Insurance Pool
If you are turned down by individual health insurance companies because of pre-existing conditions, your state may have a high risk health insurance pool you can obtain health insurance from. It may not be an affordable health insurance choice, but it may be the only individual or family health insurance option available to you that will pay for your pre-existing conditions if you don’t qualify for COBRA (see #1 of this list).
6. Individual and Family Health Insurance
This affordable health insurance option is fairly simple: you just go to an insurance company and buy individual or family health insurance the same way you would by home or auto insurance. These plans work similar to what an employer would offer their employees but would be more expensive since you don’t get the cheaper group rate and you would not have an employer contributing to some of the costs. Another drawback of individual and family health insurance plans is that there is usually a pre-existing conditions clause (they may not cover pre-existing conditions or may not cover them until after a certain period of time) and a medical exam.
7. High Deductible Health Plan
High deductible health plans are becoming a popular affordable health insurance option. Say someone did decide to cover their basic doctor’s visits and prescriptions out-of-pocket, but wanted the assurance of knowing that if they did need major medical care, such as for a surgery or disease, that they were covered. A high deductible health plan would do just that. It is designed to only “kick-in” after the out-of-pocket expenses (the doctor’s visits, prescriptions, ect.) reach the deductible, which is higher than a normal insurance plan. Using a health insurance plan such as this has a lower premium because the deductible is higher.
8. Short Term Health Insurance Coverage
This is a great affordable health insurance option for someone in-between jobs or who knows they will be starting a job soon. Short-term health insurance coverage works the same as an individual health insurance policy (see #6 above), but you will only be covered for a specific amount of time which would keep your premiums down. This is also a good option for someone who needs time to examine their individual and family health insurance choices but still would like to be covered quickly to avoid any coverage gaps. Continue reading Help! I Need Affordable Health Insurance
How does the current health care system in America work?
Ask:
I know there is a huge debate about universal health care and such on health care reform in America. But what is it that makes sparked this reform? How does the current system work and what it wrong with it? I’m trying to find the answers online, but I can’t find anything that can answer my question. Thank you for all responses!
Answer:
The real answer will be too long to post here, but a few highlights. Health care used to be under the control of doctors. In WWII the US government unconstitutionally froze wages and prices so in order to obtain and retain the best employees, employers had to add benefits as they couldn’t adjust wages. One of the benes added was health insurance which was not really needed (not anywhere as important as it is today). After WWII the link remained–in peoples’ minds and in fact.Come 1966 and the feds decided to take their unconstitutional Social Security program a step farther and create Medicare–now the feds were in health care big time. Medicare has grown over time and was always supposed to ensure that no doc or hospital ever got a profit from treating Medicare patients–unfortunately docs have been taken to the cleaners on the deal which is why it’s getting harder and harder to find one who takes Medicare. Also premiums are on the rise, particularly in the last decade:
In the US, Medicare is going bankrupt. In 1998, Medicare premiums were $43.80 and in 2008 will be $96.40–up 120%. “Medigap” insurance is common because of the 20% co-pay required for service. Medicare HMOs are common because they reduce that burden without an extra charge in many cases. HOWEVER, many procedures which used to have no or a low co-pay NOW cost the full 20% for the HMO Medicare patient. ALSO the prescription coverage they tended to offer has been REDUCED in many cases to conform to the insane “donut hole” coverage of the feds. Doctors are leaving Medicare because of the low and slow pay AND because the crazy government wants to “balance” their Ponzi scheme on the backs of doctors.
“That dark cloud lurking over the shoulder of every Massachusetts physician is Medicare. If Congress does not act, doctors’ payments from Medicare will be cut by about 5 percent annually, beginning next year through 2012, creating a financial hailstorm that would wreak havoc with already strained practices.
Cumulatively, the proposed cuts represent a 31 percent reduction in Medicare reimbursement. If the cuts are adjusted for practice-cost inflation, the American Medical Association says Medicare payment rates to physicians in 2013 would be less than half of what
In the very early 1970s, others looked at the growth of health care as we made more scientific advances (DNA was only discovered in 1953, for example) and decided that being able to have control over life and death should be pretty profitable, so the concept of “managed care” based on the LIE that doctors were making “too much money” was born and embraced by those who couldn’t get into or through medical school. The door was open for the hijacking of medical care and the skyrocketing of prices. As you see with Medicare payments, doctors would NOT be the beneficiaries.
Since that time the boldness of insurance companies to ignore their contracts as well as antitrust laws has grown wildly and the government sits and twiddles its thumbs wasting time and tax dollars on “investigating” Microsoft and baseball instead of enforcing laws. Hospitals have decided that they’ll charge the uninsured about 3 times what they charge the insured and have become aggressive in going after CITIZENS who don’t pay their bills in full.
As always, the government has ensured problems will exist with their mandates that everyone be treated at an ER if he has a life-threatening condition, regardless of ability to pay. Sounds good on paper. Hospitals deliberately misinterpret the mandate to mean “treat all illegals no matter how little they need medical care and bill the heck out of the taxpayer.” Combine this with the stupid governmental mandate of “compassionate entry” (the Border Patrol is instructed to let in everyone who is ill so they can be treated here, knowing full well in many cases the taxpayer is going to eat the bill), and you have hard-working Americans paying more and seeing portions of their hospitals shut down because of governmental meddling and their inability to do their job: secure the borders.
A few things that should be of interest to any thinking man on the subject of health care in the US–in other words, the pols won’t discuss this and the media give it short shrift:
When 75% of the people who declare bankruptcy over medical bills ARE INSURED, then insurance is CLEARLY not the answer.
“Aldrich’s situation is “asinine” but increasingly common, said Dr. Deborah Thorne of Ohio University. Thorne, co-author of a widely quoted 2005 study that found medical bills contributed to nearly half of the 1.5 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. each year, said that ratio has likely worsened since the data was gathered.
…
Like Aldrich, Thorne said, three-quarters of the individuals in the study who declared bankruptcy because of health problems were insured. ”
Linda Peeno, MD testified that SHE had often denied treatment JUST to save the insurance company money
Furthermore:
“the vast majority of health insurance policies are through for-profit stock companies. They are in the process of “shedding lives” as some term it when “undesirable” customers are lost through various means, including raising premiums and co-pays and decreasing benefits (Britt, “Health insurers getting bigger cut of medical dollars,” 15 October 2004, investors.com). That same Investors Business Daily article from 2004 noted the example of Anthem, another insurance company. They said the top five executives (not just the CEO) received an average of an 817 percent increase in compensation between 2000 and 2003. The CEO, for example, had his compensation go from $2.5 million to $25 million during that time period. About $21 million of that was in stock payouts, the article noted.
A 2006 article, “U.S. Health Insurance: More Market Domination, More CEO Compensation”
(hcrenewal.blogspot.com) notes that in 56 percent of 294 metropolitan areas one insurer “controls more than half the business in health maintenance organization and preferred provider networks underwriting.” In addition to having the most enrollees, they also are the biggest purchasers of health care and set the price and coverage terms. “’The results is double-digit premium increases from 2001 and 2004—peaking with a 13.9 percent jump in 2003—soaring well above inflation and wages increases.’” Where is all that money going? The article quotes a Wall Street Journal article looking at the compensation of the CEO of UnitedHealth Group. His salary and bonus is $8 million annually. He has benefits such as the use of a private jet. He has stock-option fortunes worth $1.6 billion.”
–Save America, Save the World by Cassandra Nathan pp. 127-128
“Insurance Companies Robbing Patients
Robbing patients to pay CEOs leads to unprecedented medical insurance corporation greed.