Thirty Two Thousand Dollars a Year for Health Insurance

[n2doc]

Coming to an insurance plan near you: the $32,000 premium
Posted by Sarah Kliff at 11:00 AM ET, 09/27/2011

The Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Education Trust are out this morning with their annual survey of employer-based insurance. The results, unsurprisingly, aren’t pretty: health insurance premiums for employee-based health insurance have increased 113 percent since 2001 and are expected to more than double from an average of $15,073 today to $32,175:


That’s a pretty terrifying chart - and keep in mind, that’s just for the employer-based insurance market. It doesn’t include individual market plans, where even bigger premium increases are more common. Health insurance costs have risen fast enough to eat up an entire decade of earning increases, a Health Affairs study found last month, and this new survey shows they could continue to do so for the next 10 years, too.

While that squiggly red line is scary, the chart that might matter more shows the share of benefits that employees are paying for. Over the past decade, not only have employees’ benefits cost more, as medical costs have risen, but employers have come to expect subscribers to pick up an increasingly large part of the tab:


more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/coming-to-an-insurance-plan-near-you-the-32000-premium/2011/09/27/gIQAFt9q1K_blog.html?hpid=z2

[steve2470]

1. Oh but at least we won't let socialism into healthcare !!!!!

:sarcasm:

[jtrockville]

2. Need to overlay insurance company profits and CEO compensation

on that graph.

[rbnyc]

24. + 1 (nt)

[FourScore]

28. Bingo! n/t

[Angry Dragon]

3. Long live the bottom...........not so much

[sam11111]

4. dr's income - $10,000/yr about 1990 in Sweden

They don't have to live like gods.

[subterranean]

7. Around $70,000/ yr in 2004

Source:
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/15/how-much-do-doctors-in-other-countries-make/

[SixthSense]

5. And that's all you need to know about why there are no jobs

Who can hire with that kind of overhead? $32k is close to the US per capita income. The money has to come from somewhere, so at that price a great deal of people must necessarily be left out.

Those people are all the people who used to have health care at the jobs they were laid off from, and don't at their present marginal employment jobs - if they have a job at all.

[rbnyc]

23. + 1 !!!!

[newspeak]

33. that's why sanders stated that it was good for businesses

if the government provided the medical. Corporations, small businesses don't have to worry about those benefits if they are already being provided.

[Bake]

43. Exactly. Businesses (other than the insurance companies) support the public option.

May of their competitors DON'T have to provide health insurance becuase their countries have a public option.

Bake

[Liberal_in_LA]

35. +2

[riderinthestorm]

6. You are going to see more businesses dropping employee coverage in the next 2 yrs

Mark my words that once the mandate is in place, you will see more and more businesses dropping coverage. Why should they continue to subsidize this extortion? Once everyone is forced to buy health insurance themselves in 2014, employers will have no incentive to keep offering it since everyone will have to buy it - enforced by federal law, and insurance companies will have to sell it to even the most high risk person.

Companies will save a bundle by not having to subsidize employee plans. PLUS they get out of the headache of managing their policies - they can cut their HR office in half from the time and labor savings of not managing those behemoths.

The fall-out is going to be very interesting once that happens. The government is going to end up picking up more and more of the health insurance tab (which the health insurance companies will milk/extort for as long and as much as they can) before the growing financial pressure forces Congress to react sooner or later. Either Congress then finally gets smart and enacts something like single payer and/or they eliminate the insurance middle man and adopt a Medicare-for-all scenario. Or worst case scenario, Obama's health care reforms are completely thrown out.

Or Congress continues to blow Big Medical InsureCo, and they suck up the subsidies to this extortion. Sickening.

[virgogal]

10. I'll be long gone by then but god help the rest of you. Awful.

[RKP5637]

13. Yeah, that's what I think will happen too. When the population has to bear the

brunt of health care cost either only the really wealthy will survive or health care in the US will change. I don't bank on the tea party crowd doing much, they will be convinced it's their god given right and freedom to pay $32k/year to the health care industry criminals and they will want no gov. socialized interference in their right to be fully victimized.

Given who TPTB are, as you say, "Or Congress continues to blow Big Medical InsureCo, and they suck up the subsidies to this extortion. Sickening."

It gets so revolting here anymore.

[riderinthestorm]

15. You know, I firmly believe that most Americans would fork over the same $$

if they believed they could get real health care without concern (ie taxes that went towards a single payer plan). Unfortunately Americans have been sold a lie about "socialized medicine" and thus they refuse to understand the ramifications.

It is revolting and I'm sick of the propaganda. Unfortunately I believe we have a generation to endure this atrocity. Shame.

[RKP5637]

16. I don't see it changing, I wish it would, but I'm not sure what the enablers would

be. We have a congress with a large percentage millionaires or close to it, we have a bought/bribed congress, elections that cost mammoth amounts of money, a MSM that feeds off the frenzy and a SCOTUS that is questionable, lobbyists all over the place and a dumbed down population. And more to the list ... Plus endless propaganda, disinformation and tabloid news. And more to the list ...

The first step would be to get the money out of elections and congress, but I just don't see that happening. Yep, I agree, "Unfortunately I believe we have a generation to endure this atrocity. Shame."

I really feel sorry for the youth of today, it's a mess they are inheriting.

[dotymed]

46. Also, the politicians

will KEEP their citizen paid health care...

[RKP5637]

49. Yep, and with only a 12% approval rating on their performance in congress. n/t

[newspeak]

59. my hubby's cousin

was a right wing kind of guy until who moved to canada. He's an EMT, gets paid more in canada than he did in the states and has medical. When he came to visit he said he was glad he moved, he will never have to worry if something medically happens to him. Yeah, he pays more taxes, but he makes more than he did here and doesn't mind paying, especially because he has medical.

[Maine_Nurse]

8. Yeah, individual plans here are about $18k per year, so thats about right. nt

[tech5270]

9. I hadn't had insurance since I quit working in 2002

During my working life I probably paid $300K and my most expensive care was an emergency room visit and that was less than $3K I never had a primary care physician and was healthy enough that it wasn't a problem. Last year I got taken to the hospital by the EMT's and was admitted for four days. They ran every freakin test to figure out what was wrong with me. After all their efforts, the only thing they could tell me was I was dehydrated or drank too much.
It was so much fun to cash out $24K from my retirement to pay for that privilege.
I thank God that skilled medical professionals are there when I really need them. I just wish more of them were skilled diagnosticians.

[offmybrain]

11. My individual is just under 1200.00 a year up from 1050.00 last year

But my deductible is 5000.00

[Vinnie From Indy]

12. Really? Please tell us who offers health insurance at that

price? Less than $100. per month?

Cheers!

[Arger68]

17. Mine is $119.00 per mont hfor $10,000 deductible.

I am in Minnesota, 43 yo male non smoker. Blue Cross is the carrier. I tried to lower my deductible earlier this year but was denied for pre-existing conditions. Minnesota has a risk pool that I could sign up for, but it's about triple the price for $3500.00 deductible. I spent $23,000 out of pocket between 2007 and 2009, not including premiums.

[offmybrain]

20. Mine is through Aetna

35 Atlanta,no pre existing conditions. 5000.00 dedeutible.

[Bandit]

30. And your employer doesn't provide any part of it?

:shrug: I find it difficult to believe anybody could find complete Health Insurance for such a small amount....My wife had to drop her "catastrophic health" when it went over five hundred a month. Blue Cross and Catastrophic only with five thousand deductable..:shrug:

[offmybrain]

34. I do subcontract work.I'm single no dependents.

This is what comes up when I just did a online quote W/aetna.These are the 3 cheapest,they went up to 235.00

GA Managed Choice Open Access Value 10000 View Plan Details
Total Premium: $57.00* | Medical Premium: $57.00*
Deductible Co-Insurance Out-of-Pocket Maximum
In Network $10,000 Individual / $20,000 Family 20% after deductible (0% once out-of-pocket max is satisfied) $12,500 Individual / $25,000 Family
Out of Network $10,000 Individual / $20,000 Family 40% after deductible (0% once out-of-pocket max is satisfied) $12,500 Individual / $25,000 Family

Compare selected plans
GA Managed Choice Open Access Value 5000 View Plan Details
Total Premium: $99.00* | Medical Premium: $99.00*
Deductible Co-Insurance Out-of-Pocket Maximum
In Network $5,000 Individual / $10,000 Family 20% after deductible (0% once out-of-pocket max is satisfied) $10,000 Individual / $20,000 Family
Out of Network $10,000 Individual / $20,000 Family 40% after deductible (0% once out-of-pocket max is satisfied) $12,500 Individual / $25,000 Family

Compare selected plans
GA MC OA High Deductible 5000 (HSA Compatible) View Plan Details
Total Premium: $110.00* | Medical Premium: $110.00*
Deductible Co-Insurance Out-of-Pocket Maximum
In Network $5,000 Individual / $10,000 Family 0% after deductible $5,000 Individual / $10,000 Family
Out of Network $10,000 Individual / $20,000 Family 30% after deductible (0% once out-of-pocket max is satisfied) $12,500 Individual / $25,000 Family

[RKP5637]

14. I'm curious too, who is the carrier? n/t

[ThomCat]

18. So the plan is to make employer provided insurance so expensive

that companies will be forced to no longer provide it to any employees except executives.

Employees will all be forced to them buy insurance out-of-pocket at the market rate if it is less expensive that the corporate rate.

That externalized the entire cost from the corporation to the employee. That's exactly what corporations want to do. Goal #1 is satisfied!

Of course, market rates for insurance will be high too. We already know that legislation will define that cost as 22% a person's take-home pay for an individual. It didn't specify yet what the cost will be for a family insurance plan, but certainly it is going to be priced at a large percentage of what a two-income middle class family earns. They'll want to take as much as they can.

This is going to be, essentially, a new income tax upon every family paid directly to insurance companies. :(

[JoeyT]

19. No one could have foreseen this.

Except for all the people that foresaw it and were told to shut up so we could count it as a win.

Our idea of "Winning!" is kind of starting to remind me of Charlie Sheen's.

[woo me with science]

53. +1

[area51]

26. +1, exactly

"This is going to be, essentially, a new income tax upon every family paid directly to insurance companies."

The fallout on the democrats is going to be huge.

We needed single-payer health care.

What we got is GingrichCare.

[Yo_Mama]

29. That's exactly right

Nor can the health care reform plan ever succeed, because it both adds new mandated coverages for health insurance plans by 2014, and adds a huge new entitlement to pay for most of the costs of the middle-income or lower-income worker who don't get coverage through employment. It's completely unaffordable - the cost projections assumed that most Americans would still get coverage through employment. But the other thing the plan does is impose special costs on "Cadillac" care plans, and as everyone can see, pretty soon everyone will be in "Cadillac" care plans.

So the public gets a crushing burden to sustain a system that the public hates and distrusts, and most of the public will have higher deductibles than they do now, so it's hard to see how they will even get to use their new mandated coverage.

This has the potential to destroy the Democratic party - Dems need to get serious and deal with it.

Much of the extra cost in our medical system comes from underpayments for services in government medical coverage (both Medicare and Medicaid), which gets shifted to those not covered by medical insurance, and our aging demographics. The cost-shifting is going to get much worse over the next decade, and our average age will also.

We have to change the system. Demanding that people participate in a failing system was one of the stupidest measures a US Congress has ever passed.

Another blindingly idiotic part of this (and part of the new plans to "pay for" the job legislation) was to further cut reimbursements for Medicare, which will also lower Medicaid reimbursements and increase cost-shifting.

If Congress had set out to construct a plan that was doomed to fail it could not have succeeded better. We need a do-over on this. There were good parts of the reform bill, but the overall premise was flawed, and the public is crucially interested. Many persons lives depend on doing a decent job of this.

You can't consider private/government insurances in separate buckets - one medical system provides services to both, and if you squish payments for one payments for the other have to rise.

[ThomCat]

36. All very well said. +1

[JDPriestly]

39. So, Yo_Mama, what is your solution?

If you are going to criticize, please suggest how you would provide health care for everyone. Or do you think that health care should be available only for those who can afford it?

[Yo_Mama]

45. I argued when the health care debate was going on that single payer

would work much better. I think it would be more affordable.

I think it would be safer and protect the vulnerable, because if we are all in the same system, we will all know that we are being subjected to the results of the decisions we make.

DU did not seem to agree with me at the time, and I do believe that democracy is important. But this system is not working. I do not believe it can ever be fully implemented. Further, I do not think it will cut costs for ANYBODY, because we've already had the HHS secretary advise the states in a letter that they could cut stuff like prescription drug coverage and dental care out of Medicaid. Bad teeth not only can kill you, but they cause a host of medical problems.

So my suggestion is to take the deficits seriously and work toward a single-payer system.

A starting point should be to provide at least primary and routine coverage for everyone through a payroll tax. If you are interested I'd be happy to post about this in detail. We have got to get the insurance companies out of a lot of this - it's utterly wasteful.

[ThomCat]

51. "get the insurance companies out of a lot of this"

:applause:

Yes, insurance companies need to be removed from their stranglehold position.

That was the huge mistake that Obama made, and he made it right at the beginning.

He never needed to bribe the insurance companies to get them to "come to the table" during the so-called health care reform negotiations. They would have begged and paid a fortune to be allowed to sit at that table to have a voice in what was going to happen. Especially given that organizations for doctors, nurses and real health care advocates were barred from the table. Only for-profit corporations were allowed to send their lobbyists to the negotiations to help write that new legislation. Even the unions had to fight to get heard, in phone calls and separate meetings outside of the health care negotiations. The bribe, and the exclusion of everyone representing real access to health care told us immediately that failure was the only option we were going to get.

Some of us saw it immediately, and said so at the time.

So what did Obama do? He offered the health insurance industry the promise that they would remain a vital and profitable part of health care delivery in the United States. But, in order for health insurance to remain a vital and profitable part of health care delivery, it has to remain a mandatory and growing cost in the middle, between you and your doctor, providing no benefit, but inflating all of your costs.

The whole problem we need to solve is that the insurance companies are a huge source of inflated costs between patients and doctors that doesn't need to be there. Insurance companies limit access to services and make everything more expensive. They also simply extract huge amounts of money from health care transactions as profits, and lets not forget that their profit margins are high and stay high every year as they keep raising their rates and our costs. They do this while providing no benefit for most of the extra costs they add to the whole health care system.

Getting the insurance industry out of the middle was supposed to be the whole solution. Embedding them there in the middle and protecting them with guaranteed profits is the exact opposite of what was supposed to happen!

[JDPriestly]

52. I agree with you 100%, Yo-Mama.

[LuckyLib]

41. So the next time the baggers shout "No new taxes" we can point out that they're already

here and rising.

[JDPriestly]

38. essentially a new income tax --

For the cost of this new income tax, we could have single payer. That's where we should go and why we should to there -- to single payer.

If we don't want the government to run the health care plans, we could require the for-profits to operate as non-profits and control the executive pay and set regulations regarding what they have to pay for and what they don't have to pay for.

[newspeak]

58. also, students who go into the medical field, especially to become doctors

those who qualify should have government paid medical school. That's if we had single payer, then doctors wouldn't be paying huge student loans and those who are poor and middle income and really wish to serve the public have a chance to be a doctor.

[JDPriestly]

60. Right. This is essential.

[steve2470]

21. k&r for today's crowd nt

[rbnyc]

22. kick -

- so I can find later.

Thanks.

[mod mom]

25. Good thing the Obama Administration was so quick to diss the public option!

especially those 1st 2 years when they controlled congress.

[Lucian]

27. Good thing I'll be doing my Ph.D. work in Europe in a couple of years...

because I may end up staying there permanently.

[progressoid]

31. Now THIS is a big fucking deal.

[FiveGoodMen]

32. Well said.

[nichomachus]

37. I find it odd that Kaiser is concerned about this

Our health-care system was working fine until the Kaisers figured out that if they corporatized it, they could make billions of dollars by denying people care.

[JDPriestly]

40. Kaiser is a corporation, but I believe that it is doctor-owned.

It provides healthcare -- excellent healthcare in my experience -- at a relatively low cost. Don't knock Kaiser. They lead in low-cost healthcare.

Besides, I think that this information is from the Kaiser Foundation, not the Kaiser that actually provides the healthcare.

[nichomachus]

61. Kaiser is the family that came up with the current health care system

Before they worked their magic, the health care system worked just fine. Then, they decided they could corporatize it and make money by denying care. They said that -- and it's on the record.

[quakerboy]

42. Remind me

Whats the cost per person for medicare, medicaid, S-chip programs, the Sanfrancisco plan, Canadian Health insurance, Badgercare, etc?

[DontTreadOnMe]

44. What happens when 90% of people just don't pay for health insurance

There has to be a point when it hurts the insurance companies. They are driving away all their customers.

[bertman]

48. Don'tTreadOnMe, the answer is that the people who do not purchase coverage will

be going to the emergency rooms just like they are now. That means that the gummint gets to pay for the very limited care that people will be able to get when hospitals are refusing to take "medical welfare" cases. This is the reason that the Money Party is trying to defund the Medicare and Medicaid systems. When that happens, the 'regular' people will go back to leeches and bleeding and voodoo, I guess.

On the topic of the $15,000 annual premium. I was amazed to read that report in this thread because yesterday my company got our annual health insurance quote from our carrier of ten years or so. There were some changes from previous years.

First, because our business has been cut in half by the 'Green Shoots' of the New Depression (or whatever they call it now), we laid off employees and are now too small to qualify for the same premium rates as last year--which were not great, I tell you. So, this year, the old folks in their 50's and 60's (like my wife and I) are paying higher premiums than the younger folks; whereas, last year we all had the same premium rate. NOTE: I think this may have been one of those famous 'unintended consequences' that we read so much about. But then again, maybe it was all part of the plan to allow the insurance companies to jack up rates EVEN higher as companies downsize and don't qualify for volume rates.

Next, our deductibles are higher, plus our rates for the same 80% coverage jumped by 11 percent. BUT, Family plans now include a TRIPLE deductible for each FAMILY member that is $4500 as opposed to the $1500 for the individual plans.

So, even though my wife and I are (marginally) able to afford to pay for this coverage because my company pays half of my premium (and none of my wife's), we could conceivably lay out our $15,000 premium payments, plus our $6,000 in deductible, plus hundreds in copays, and then face having to pay the 20% that is NOT covered by our policies. A major surgical event could easily cost $80,000. So figure adding another $16,000 to our total health care bill that would already hypothetically be hovering around $22,000-plus. None of this even takes into account the missed work time that the injured or ill family member will lose income for; nor the time missed by the spouse who is trying to help the other through such a terrible period.

Now, I ask anyone reading this: how many working-class American families can afford this?

And how can the supporters of the Healthcare Deform that passed under this administration dare to claim that it was a WIN for working Americans. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Of course, now that it's nearing election time they will polish this turd and spit-shine it until it gleams. But nothing will take away the STINK.

[dotymed]

56. This is all true. Unfortunately, the GOP will use these

facts to stop "Obamacare." There are some great parts of this "reform" No more pre-existing conditions, children get to stay on parents insurance much longer, many good changes.

Unfortunately, by allowing the profiteers "at the table" while excluding the people, we once again find ourselves in an untenable position.

Really, most Americans would prefer a bureaucrat as an intermediary between us and our physicians than a person whose money depends on refusing us health care. Maybe in October this can be one of the things we demand. So much of this could be prevented now and in the future, by REINSTATING THE FAIRNESS DOCTRINE.

People who are truthfully informed tend to make the correct decisions.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

47. This is CRIMINAL... How can they justify - and this isn't the

bullshit about uninsured going to hospitals that's causing this,


They have us under a barrel and there are no options.

I checked to see what a catastrophic plan would cost, since we are lucky
enough to not need much routine care...and IT WAS THE SAME FREAKIN
cost as full coverage. What a freaking racket

got three words: GOVERNMENT PRICE CONTROLS

Too bad no one in government has the balls to do it.

[Cleita]

50. Demand the choice for a public option or

to be able to buy into Medicare. I wish someone would make a court case out of this. I really believe denying you a choice to buy into Medicare, which most people already pay into with their FICA payroll deduction, is denying you your right to purchase a health plan that can deliver quality health care for a budget price. I wish some smart lawyers would make a test case of this. Why aren't companies and unions demanding this choice?

[SoCalDem]

54. What's sad is that even the 1999 rate cost $482.50 per month

and how many people have a "spare" $500 a month laying around to send off to a mega-rich insurance company...just in case they get sick..Of course if that happens, they might just need to beg for coverage..

[woo me with science]

55. K&R This was a Third Way gift to the corporations

and a millstone for the rest of us.

The first, but far from the last, betrayal.

[woo me with science]

57. Kick. nt