The national figure is 45% of us don't have any health care insurance at all. We pay $125 per week! I don't know how much longer I can make these payments. The car I could be driving, just not having to get that 125 per week is tuff enough, now they say get ready for an increase. The plan is a good one, United Health, but how many Get Biggers have none at all. 1 accident could wipe out one's finances. Their was a good story on it in the Pro Jo This morning. I don't know where these # come from, but 500 a month is crazy and the co-pays aren't cheep either. What a mess.
Cost for health insurance outpacing R.I. incomes
01:00 AM EDT on Wednesday, October 25, 2006
By Felice J. Freyer
Journal Medical Writer
Health-insurance premiums in Rhode Island are rising much faster than income, according to a new report by a national consumer group.
From 2000 to 2006, premiums increased 75 percent while median earnings went up only 23 percent. That means that premiums here are growing more than three times faster than income, says an analysis by Families USA, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that advocates affordable health care for all. Meanwhile, these more costly plans carry higher deductibles and co-payments.
For the Rhode Island worker who has watched health premiums consume an ever-fatter chunk of the paycheck, this report may merely validate a long-felt pain rather than offering any surprising new facts.
But Ron Pollack, Families USA executive director, said he was surprised at the size of the disparity between premium growth and income growth around the nation.
Rhode Islanders, in fact, are faring comparatively well, because their incomes have increased more, according to the Families USA data. Nationwide, premiums are soaring 6 ½ times faster than income, with premiums going up 74 percent while median earnings increased only 12 percent during the six-year period.
“It’s clear that premiums are absorbing a larger and larger portion of available income,” Pollack said. “For that reason, more and more people in the state of Rhode Island are at risk of joining the ranks of the underinsured and uninsured.”
Already, more than 13 percent of Rhode Islanders under age 65 have no health insurance, up from 8.1 percent in 1999.
Christopher F. Koller, Rhode Island’s health insurance commissioner, said Families USA’s statistics were in line with those gathered by his office. Additionally, a 2005 survey of employers in Rhode Island found that fewer employers are offering health insurance, with the dropoff greatest among the smallest employers.
But Koller noted that efforts are under way on several fronts to address the problem in Rhode Island, including a task force examining better ways to care for those with costly chronic illnesses and an innovative effort to develop a low-cost health plan for small companies and individuals. Koller’s office is also leading efforts to make public the cost of specific health-care services, promoting workplace wellness programs and changing the way insurers reimburse doctors to better support primary care.
“We don’t see a national solution emerging soon,” Koller said, “and we’re not going to sit around and wait for it. We’re going to do what we can as a community.”
Kim Keough, spokeswoman for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island, also did not dispute the report’s findings. “Sadly enough, I’m not surprised,” she said. She noted that health-care expenditures have increased 400 percent in recent years, and that if the trend continues, premiums will be consuming people’s entire paychecks in 22 years.
Keough said that Blue Cross tries to control costs by tracking doctors who bill unusually high amounts, limiting reimbursement to hospitals, promoting health and wellness programs, boosting the use of generic drugs, and educating members on when to use the emergency room. But she said, “No sole entity can do this alone. It’s really going to take a united effort.”
Pollack, of Families USA, said that over the long term, premium increases correlate closely with medical costs, so the underlying problem is how much Americans spend on health care, rather than manipulation by insurance companies.
Families USA calls its report the first state-by-state comparison of premiums and income. Pollack said his group conducted the study to get state-specific information after recent reports looked at the issue on a national basis. The state reports are also, he acknowledged, an effort to get health care on the political agenda in states with hotly contested congressional races.
Asked whether efforts on the state level can address the problem, Pollack said that states can make a difference, but “ultimately, this is truly a national problem. … To be truly effective, it’s going to require leadership on the federal level.”
Pollack acknowledged that there is now little political will to tackle the issue comprehensively on the federal level. Even so, he said, in the near future the federal government can make a big difference by reauthorizing a program providing health insurance to poor children, and expanding it to encompass the remaining 9 million uninsured children. Also, amending the new Medicare law to empower the federal government to negotiate prices with drug manufacturers could save money for everyone, Pollack said.
To develop its state reports, Families USA interpreted data from the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, and the U.S. Department of Labor.
Families USA is financed chiefly by large foundations, such as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Packard Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation.
Health care in Rhode Island
From 2000 to 2006:
•Annual health-insurance premiums for family coverage provided through the workplace rose from $6,904 to $12,071, an increase of $5,167 or 74.8 percent.
•Median earnings of workers increased from $26,164 to $32,134 or 22.8 percent.
•For family health coverage, the employer’s portion of annual premiums rose from $5,314 to $9,343, an increase of 75.8 percent.
•For family health coverage, the worker’s portion of annual premiums rose from $1,590 to $2,728, an increase of 71.6 percent.
•For individual health coverage, the employer’s portion of annual premiums rose from $2,382 to $4,280, an increase of 79.7 percent.
•For individual health coverage, the worker’s portion of annual premiums rose from $446 to $952, an increase of 113.4 percent.
Source: Premiums versus Paychecks: A Growing Burden for Rhode Island’s Workers. Families USA.
www.familiesusa.org/resources/publications/reporters/ri-premiums-vs-paychecks.html
