Health care IS economic recovery

Health Care Reform IS Economic Recovery
Summit Conversations at University of Miami, 2009

Companies large and small throughout the country are struggling like never before, and there are still those out there who would continue to saddle them with the insane burden of providing healthcare to their employees. No other industrialized country in the world does that. Why are we?

Making our economy grow means getting healthcare costs under control. Private enterprise and corporations have not been able to do this. Don’t believe me? Take a look at the bill from any hospital procedure - the latest on my husbands pacemaker with two nights in the hospital was $47,000.

A new healthcare survey points to another double digit increase in health care costs. A report by Aon Consulting shows insurers expect health care cost to increase an average of 10.6 percent in 2009.

The Chicago-based human resources consulting firm surveyed more than 70 leading health care insurers who represent more than 100 million insured individuals. The responses reflect the expected future increases to employer-provided health plans claims before any plan changes, based on the opinions of health plan actuaries.

Aon said the growth trend represents the lowest rate increase since it began doing the survey in 2001. But if past trends are any indication, more small firms will stop offering health care coverage and those employers who continue to sponsor health insurance coverage for their employees may shift a larger portion of the increase onto their employees through higher premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. The upshot will be more self-pay medical accounts and almost certainly, more medical bad debt.

According to the Kaiser Foundation, the number of businesses that offer health insurance has declined steadily since 2000. And those employers that do offer sponsored health care coverage now require their employees to contribute more to their premiums.

This is unsustainable - even during good times it was crushing corporations ability to be competitive in the world marketplace.

Here are a few more facts:

Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose by 5.0 percent in 2008. In 2007, small employers saw their premiums, on average, increase 5.5 percent. Firms with less than 24 workers, experienced an increase of 6.8 percent.

Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance in the United States have been rising four times faster on average than workers’ earnings since 1999.

About 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs.A new survey shows that more than 25 percent said that housing problems resulted from medical debt, including the inability to make rent or mortgage payments and the development of bad credit ratings.

According to a recent report, the United States has $480 billion in excess spending each year in comparison to Western European nations that have universal health insurance coverage. The costs are mainly associated with excess administrative costs and poorer quality of care.

Tell Washington D. C. that it’s time to get with a national health insurance program.

maven