Average cost of insurance increase has been about 3% per year. This year, it is averaging 30%

[Horse with no Name]

was just watching local news. Their slant was that it was because of "Obamacare".

That is pretty disingenuous without mentioning the fact that the insurance companies spent BILLIONS fighting insurance reform and ANYONE who didn't think they would get their money back was insane. THAT is specifically why these parasites needed to be eliminated and why we needed universal single payer healthcare for all.

We are in for some tough times. Luckily, my healthcare insurance is negotiated through March so I will at least have a reprieve that some won't.

We have an entire government with VERY few exceptions who are here to make sure the rich are taken care of...who is going to help us?

[bluerum]

1. March is like, three months from now. Not that long my friend.

[Horse with no Name]

7. I know

But we aren't even living month to month these days--more like week to week.
So the reprieve seems a little longer.:(

[yourout]

2. Last I read health insurance CEOs are doing very well though.

[Horse with no Name]

5. As are their folks in Congress who are fed at the trough. n/t

[MadBadger]

3. Mine was 50%

[Horse with no Name]

4. Good God

That is criminal.
With that increase, did your copays and deductibles stay the same or go up? (I almost have to assume this is a rhetorical question). Sigh. I'm sorry.

[Autumn]

6. I think we are on our own

don't see anything changing.

[iamjoy]

8. I Call Bullcrap

Insurance has been rising at an average rate of around 10% a year over the past decade or so.

[Horse with no Name]

9. Bullcrap or not--that's the story they are peddling on the news

http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2010/12/13/dallas-company-pinched-by-rising-health-care-costs/

>>>snip
During each of the past eight years, Burkert explained, the company’s health care costs have risen by less than three percent. But this year, their health plan shot up by 30 percent, and that was after negotiations.

Burkert shopped around, asking eight other health insurance carriers to submit bids. Five of them declined to do so. The three who did submit bids could not offer better plans. “That tells me it’s not a carrier-specific problem,” Burkert said. “It’s an industry problem, and we feel it’s driven by healthcare reform.”

[Common Sense Party]

13. I want to know what kind of crappy plan they had that only went up 3%

each of the last 8 years. Are there leeches and faith healing involved?

[superduperfarleft]

14. Burkert needs a better agent, because he has no idea what he's talking about.

This isn't a company of thousands of people (Dunn & Bradstreet says between 50-200 employees), which means they have next to zero negotiating power with individual insurance companies, who are going to look at the health history of the company and make a determination as to premium. I guarantee you Mr. Burkert has some really sick people in there that are costing his insurance company tons of money. And if a prospective carrier comes in higher than the current rates, it's common to outright decline to quote, because they don't want uncompetitive bids flooding the marketplace.

And nobody's averaging 3% increases, that's nonsense, he's just been lucky. Every carrier around me is averaging 10-20% per year for perfectly healthy companies, long before HCR was even a glint in someone's eye.

[Xithras]

16. Nope, closer to 5% and declining slightly most years.

This chart shows the rate of annual increases for federal, California State (the 3rd largest plan in the nation), and a national average of private employer provided insurance plans. Overall, the percentage of the annual rate increases have declined a bit most years.

I'd be curious to know what the REAL numbers are, post-reform. I doubt they're 30%, but they're probably up a but from 2009.

[Journeyman]

10. I wish the average increase was even close to 3% per year. . .

Mine's gone up 20% or more every year for the past dozen years, and 30% this year.

We're a small, independent business, few employees, so there's no group discount or anything like that. We're just a few people trying to make it in this world without becoming a part of corporate america, and finding it increasingly difficult the older the we get.

[Common Sense Party]

11. Double-digit increases have been standard for many, many years.

I deal with hundreds of employers on one of their employee benefits. Whenever we discuss their health insurance plans, they routinely tell me that the increases are anywhere from 10 to 24% year over year. This has been going on a long time, and will continue to occur, regardless of lame and half-hearted attempts to "reform" the health care system.

Health care insurance premiums go up, because health care costs go up. No one is addressing the health care COSTS.

[Vinnie From Indy]

12. Of course they are!

How else is CEO Angela Braly at WellPoint going to afford her third home?

[guruoo]

15. My employer's healthcare bennies remained the same as last year.

There was no increase in either cost, or copays.
(Fortune 500 company, household name.)