The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released a simple document that could transform the entire health care debate in the United States. Absolutely no other set of statistics so cleanly identify the nature of our broken system.
This week we put out our annual benchmark survey of employer health coverage and costs. Two numbers jumped off the pages.
The first number was the average cost of a family health insurance policy in 2009: $13,375. To put that number in context, if you are an employer, you can hire an employee at the minimum wage for about $15,000 per year. If you are a consumer, you can rent an average two-bedroom apartment nationwide for $11,136 per year (though it is quite a bit more here in Menlo Park, California where our Foundation is based). You can also buy a new Chevy Aveo for $12,000, and it gets 35 miles per gallon on the highway.
The other result that jumped off the page was the stark contrast between increases in health insurance premiums and overall inflation in the general economy. Premiums went up 5% and prices overall fell 0.7% (mainly driven by a big drop-off in energy prices) [...] over the last ten years premiums have increased by 131%, while wages have grown 38% and inflation has grown 28%. Consider this: If people (and businesses) are as concerned as they are now about rising health care costs in a period when they are actually moderating, how much more concerned will they be when rates of increase return to historic averages?
Let’s do some very simple arithmetic. Start with a fairly conservative assumption: If we assume that premium increases over the next ten years will average what they did over the last five (about 6.1% per year), the average premium for a family policy in 2019 will be $24,180. That’s a big number. On the other hand, if we assume increases revert to the average of the last ten yearsâan average annual increase of about 8.7% and a very plausible scenarioâpremiums in 2019 will average a whopping $30,803, a very scary number.
And here’s the chart:
Very few families will be able to afford a $30,000 insurance policy. Even less companies will find a market for it. So their only choice will be to cut back on what the coverage offers, either with less benefits or lower amounts of coverage. More businesses will have to drop their coverage and throw their employees on to the individual market, driving costs up higher, as individuals aren’t bargaining collectively with insurers for lower prices.
Simply put, the private insurance market would cease to exist within 10 years, maybe a little more, on the current trajectory.
Those who think “failure is not an option” is just a slogan should really take a look at the Kaiser Foundation numbers. What they show is nothing but a nightmare.
Even the President quickly took notice of the report in his speech to the AFL-CIO today:
In fact, a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation was released today showing that family premiums rose more than 130 percent over the last 10 years — three times faster than wages. They now average over $13,000 a year, the highest amount on record, which is why when you go in to negotiate, you can’t even think about negotiating for a salary — a wage increase because the whole negotiation is about trying to keep the benefits you already have. (Applause.)
That’s not just the fault of the employer, it’s the fault of a broken health care system that’s sucking up all the money. When are we going to stop it? (Applause.) When are we going to say enough is enough? How many more workers have to lose their coverage? How many more families have to go into the red for a sick loved one? (Applause.) How much longer are we going to have to wait? It can’t wait. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: We can’t wait! We can’t wait! We can’t wait!
It’s not an idle threat to tell everyone that they will not have health insurance in ten years without reform. Heck, that’s why the insurance industry, while fighting anything that drains their profits, ostensibly supports reform. If the insurance market goes down the gutter, so do they. The opportunity exists for us to remake our health care system to remove the excess, the money that never goes toward care, the bloated salaries. Otherwise, even with a reformed system we could end up with the same people running the same system right into the ground.
I used to be willing to compromise on single-payer by going for the public option. As more and more information comes out, I'm less and less willing to compromise. We need to take the big step to universal health care — the American Plan — and get basic health insurance out of the for-profit sector. We're trying to move this mountain shovel by shovel and we'll just have to do it again. And when we do, a whole lot of us will be exhausted from the first move to a partial solution that doesn't really help.
The public option plan being suggested leaves a whole lot of people worse off than now, hard as that is to conceive. The universal mandate comes with subsidies for those who need them — in the form of tax breaks. Given the minimum wage and poverty level and their tenuous connection to real cost of living, I don't expect the threshold for subsidy to be useful. There are no tax breaks for non-profits, so those who've been struggling with notoriously low incomes will struggle more. Those who've been doing without health insurance but use alternative therapies for successfully treatment will no longer be able to afford those alternatives because the money will go to a health care system that doesn't necessarily have solutions for them.
We need to get behind REAL reform — universal health care on the non-profit American Plan.
here is something I found earlier on TruthDig.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUPMjC9mq5Y&feat…
If single-payer universal health care is the way to go, why did Congress reject adopting it for themselves? That should have been your first clue!
It looks like US health care system is crumbling, and solution for problem is nowhere in sight.
I have another movie to recomend, it is “Soylent Green”, which was made over 30 years ago.
It has very important messages.
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Let's not forget that the DOCTORS also have BLOATED salaries. It's not just the insurance companys that are making much more money than they are worth.
“DEATH TAKE THEM ALL i SAY…AND THE SOONER THE BETTER.
WE NEED A REVOLUTION PEOPLE.
233 YEARS AGO Our forefathers “mutually pledged to each other there lives, there fortunes and there sacred honor” to form the union we call home….
When, as a people…Are we going to finally be worthy of their sacrifice?
I have yet to see it in my lifetime……WE ARE NOT WORTHY!
We ….as a people are nothing but greedy whinny cowards, and those that gave there all so that we can be so “selfish” are surely rolling over in there graves….wondering how it all turned to SHIT.
KNOW THINE ENEMY…FOR THE ENEMY IS ….US.
Why don't you have any info on Blue Cross/ Blue Shield? BC/BS is one of the worst offenders against subscribers. I am in a battle with Highmark BC/BS of Pa. now over prostate cancer bills which they refuse to pay. I cannot find any financial info on their stock or ownership. They seem to be some kind of private company out of Chicago which franchises the various BC/BS providers around the country. I cannot find them on my stock market sources. They are easily as bad as Cigna and the others
Why don't you have any info on Blue Cross/ Blue Shield? BC/BS is one of the worst offenders against subscribers. I am in a battle with Highmark BC/BS of Pa. now over prostate cancer bills which they refuse to pay. I cannot find any financial info on their stock or ownership. They seem to be some kind of private company out of Chicago which franchises the various BC/BS providers around the country. I cannot find them on my stock market sources. They are easily as bad as Cigna and the others