US health insurance costs rise nearly twice as fast as pay: survey

US health insurance costs rise nearly twice as fast as pay: survey
AFP
Published: Wednesday September 12, 2007


The cost of health insurance in the United States climbed nearly twice as fast as wages in the first half of 2007, with family coverage costing employers around 1,000 dollars (714 euros) a month, a poll showed Wednesday.

Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of 6.1 percent in 2007, while wages went up by 3.7 percent, the Employer Health Benefits Survey released by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust showed.

The 6.1 percent rise in health insurance premiums marked a slowdown from the rate of increase last year, but also strongly outpaced inflation, running at 2.6 percent.

"In 2007, the increase in health insurance premiums was about twice the rate of inflation and not quite twice the increase in workers' pay," Kaiser vice-president Gary Claxton said in a webcast.

Premiums for family coverage have surged by 78 percent since 2001, while wages have gone up 19 percent.

The average premium for family coverage in 2007 was just over 12,000 dollars, with workers having to pick up part of the cost.

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http://rawstory.com/news/afp/US_health_insurance_costs_rise_near_09122007.html

several decades imo.

Naturally, competition among insurance providers does not work. They do NOT compete to make *profits* suffer from one company to the next. This is where our capitalism fails. A "free market" would have REAL COMPETITION and prices should fluxuate freely. But health insurance companies will NOT compete with one another to the extent that they will sacrifice profits. Ultimately, what the aggregate of contributors

That being the case, the ONLY way they will compete is 1) rejection of people they think will need their services 2) distribution (some companies offer no choice whatsoever) 3) "packages" of poorer coverage which are designed to confuse the consumer and so on.

OTHERWISE, PRICES WILL RISE AS LONG AS PEOPLE DON'T ***REVOLT***. That means voting OUT their incumbent Democrat congressman for one who supports universal coverage IN THE PRIMARY. That's a lot of inertia to overcome.

I predict prices rising into the $24k-$30k range for a family for full PPO coverage. About $2,000 a month.

There will be families who have both partners working HARD who will STILL not be able to afford insurance enough to avoid losing their houses / savings because the insurance "package" they could afford didn't cover enough...

Only when this story becomes one that touches most of us in every little town to the point of everyone knowing one of these people will we finally get around to adopting a gov't run plan like most other countries, not ONE of which has gone back to private insurers only...

After seeing Sicko, I really thought this would have been a no-brainer. It is for me. Frankly, it shocks me that Hilary Clinton isn't *demanding* it - she's going to win, unless she has a heart attack - she's got so much political capital going in. She should use it.

I can see, however, that ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is going to get done until these conditions will be met to drown out the talk radio / M$M machine, and the majority of people will be playing this "reverse lottery"...

The real terrorists are sitting in the corporate offices of the health insurance companies. I am more fearful of getting sick and having my insurance company screw me out of medical care, or of reaching the point when I can no longer afford the exorbitant premiums, than I am of dying in a terrorist attack.