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Health Care for All Report : Increase in cost of insurance as share of median income from 2006 to 2016
For your general information . . .
June 23rd, 2009
Skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs are battering family budgets, eroding U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and threatening the American standard of living, once the envy of the world. As President Barack Obama and his economic advisers have repeatedly said, health costs are increasing at an unsustainable rate, and the national economy will not thrive unless they are reined in. Health care reform that guarantees quality, affordable care for everyone in the United States -- and offers the choice of a public health insurance plan -- can do what our private health insurance system has failed to do: provide economic security for families and the nation. read more
Health Insurance: Unaffordable Now, And Destined To Get Much Worse
Mouse over each state to see the percentage of median income absorbed by employer-sponsored insurance in 2006, and what that percentage would be in 2016 without a change in policy.Click a state and the document icon to get the full report.
Increase in cost of insurance
as share of median income,
from 2006 to 2016
70% and lower (turquoise)
71% to 85%
86% to 100%
101% to 115%
115% or higher (black)
~OGD~
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Highly rec'd OGD. Let your very own appeaser of the insurance industry in DC know you won't fund them to the tune of 50% of your income. No one has explained how all thesedifferent insurance cos are going to create a big enough pool to negotiate lower costs for services. Unless we authorize them to do openly, what they've been doing behind closed doors, which is collude. If we authorize collusion, what is the difference between that and a single payer system, other than that we've ceded control of the system to the same runts who drove it into the ground in the first place?
June 25, 2009 8:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
"provide economic security for families and the nation."
Sure, that's the mandate for health insurance. Uhuh.
What is the basis for these claims for 2016? from the link: "Given current trends" Yikes, how simplistic.
I'm not saying there isn't a bubble in what passes for health care costs, similar to the housing bubble. I'm wondering how treating the symptoms instead of the root causes is good "medicine".
June 25, 2009 11:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, if our healthcare costs continue to escalate at their current rates, it's a given that we're priced out of a competitive position in the world market. That's been known for well over 15 years now. So, if we don't reform healthcare, yes, economic security for families and the nation are threatened. You comment on these healthcare threads, so I assume you've done some reading. Correct me if I'm wrong, please. Given current trends, means if we don't institute significant healthcare reform now, we're fucked. May be as bad as these figures or not. You want to do the empirical calculations, please, be my guest, but until you get back with your figures, I've got no problem with 'Healthcare for America Now's' figures. And how do you consider a major reform of the 'system' to be "treating the symptoms"? It's easy to take these pot shots from the peanut gallery, but if you want to be taken seriously, take some time, formulate a thought, and spell it out in your comment. Por favor.
June 26, 2009 4:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't get your mini rant, miguel.
Fake reforms pretend to deal with causes but don't, instead they "treat the symptoms" superficially. Rising overall health care costs are a symptom.
But what is really causing them other than health care consumers demanding more health care services and products in a resource limited market? Isn't the real problem a sense of entitlement which is out of proportion to reality?
You can blame strawmen all day long, point fingers at marginal overhead allegations or alleged overpricing by some fictional Big Pharma, whatever. To me that is tantamount to sticking your head in the sand and blaming the hallucinations which result.
Fact: If California health care costs doubled in about 8 years, private insurance margins don't begin to account for that even if as high as 30%.
Fact: Buying drugs to enhance or maintain life is an option, not a requirement.
"if our healthcare costs continue to escalate"
But why are they escalating? Think about it.
Aren't we already priced out of global and even domestic markets to a large extent??
June 27, 2009 6:53 PM | Reply | Permalink