Average family health insurance policy: $13,375, up 5% -USA Today

[JohnWxy]

Interesting that given the heated debate about Health Care Reform, USA Today put this on Page 6A. What was on the first page???:

"Crashes Expose Oversight Failures" (about airlines crashes), and "In Mexico's drugwars, local police stepping up".



http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2009-09-15-insurance-costs_N.htm

By John Fritze, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — An average family health insurance policy now costs more than some compact cars, and four in 10 companies will likely pass more of that expense on to workers, according to a closely watched survey of businesses released Tuesday.

The average cost of a family policy offered by employers was $13,375 this year, up 5% from 2008, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust survey found. By comparison, wages rose 3% over that period, the study said.

The new numbers underscore warnings by President Obama about the growing cost of health insurance and were embraced by Democratic lawmakers who are pushing for legislation to change the nation's health care system. "The trends are crushing millions of businesses and American families," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said.

The annual survey of more than 2,000 companies also found that 40% of small-business employees enrolled in individual health plans pay annual deductibles of $1,000 or more. That's almost twice the number who paid that much in 2007.

(more)

And the mindless marchers say they are afraid that health care REFORM is going to raise their Health Insurance costs. They will be lucky if they even have health insurance in ten years. Of if they can still get group coverage at work, they won't be able to afford it.

[DesertFlower]

1. my dental hygienist is a 47 year old

healthy woman. she pays $500 a month for health insurance. she fears that when she reaches her 50's it will be as high as her mortgage payment.

[kestrel91316]

3. I had to drop my insurance when I was 47 because it was costing me

that much, with a $5k deductible (or was it $10k?), plus a large copay after that. And I am/was in perfect health. And that was a group policy with AVMA.

[DesertFlower]

4. and now we're going to make the insurance

execs richer with a mandate? oy vey.

[murray hill farm]

2. if I were not on Medicare,

That amount would be more than my total income from soc. security. My social security per month is still higher than my neighbors down the road who are a young couple with two small children...and they both work, he full time and she part time. They have no insurance at all, of course. Cannot afford such a thing.

[glinda]

6. My husband just went on Medicare. We were paying $1275 for only two people.

That was pretty much 40% of his income. We still pay on our home too.

[Glenda]

5. "The average employee with family coverage paid 26% of the premium"

So companies pay ~75% of the premium. I looked at mine, and company pays 65%, employee pays 35%

[Uncle Joe]

7. That's par for the course, USA Today; just as the rest of the corporate media has a

major conflict of interest they can't risk the danger of educating or enlightening the American People as to the true state of the critical issue of health care without alienating their corporate commercial/advertising buying clients.

To the corporate media, the American People; are only customers or consumers; to be sold a product, candidate or down the river.

Thanks for the thread, JohnWxy.

[OneBlueSky]

8. that amount, on its face, is so ridiculous that it screams for TRUE reform . . .

of the healthcare system . . . there are people in this country who make less than that in a year . . . and a lot more for whom thirteen grand would represent half or more of their annual income . . . and this is the system that we're supposed to build on to "reform" healthcare? . . .

what really pisses me off is that everyone involved in healthcare reform knows what the real problem is, i.e. that 30% or more of our healthcare dollar is skimmed off the top by corporations for their profits, executive salaries and perks, marketing and advertising, and redundant administration and overhead . . . yet very few with the power to do anything about it are even willing to acknowledge the problem, much less deal with it . . . that's how much power these corporations have and how afraid our lawmakers are of their wrath . . .

true healthcare reform will never happen until profit-making corporations are removed from the equation, and the money they skim off the top starts going to providing healthcare services rather than to things that have absolutely nothing to do with healthcare . . . we aren't even close to that solution yet, and whatever "reform" is ultimately foisted upon us will have the very same flaw that the current system has, i.e. that a third of the money paid into the healthcare system never reaches the patients' bedsides . . .

profiting off of the illnesses and injuries of others is despicable, yet it forms the very foundation of our healthcare system . . . I'm extremely disappointed that Obama hasn't acknowledged this reality and dealt with healthcare reform by attacking the real problem with the current system . . . instead, he's proposing to build on that system, which will produce nothing but a minimally modified dysfunctional system that will have the same flaws as the current system and that will be in need of massive overhaul again within a year, two years, three years, or however long it takes to collapse onto itself . . .