Uninsured add $900 to health premiums-study

[Roland99]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050608/us_nm/health_costs_dc_1

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Health insurance premiums will cost families and employers an extra $922 on average this year to cover the costs of caring for the uninsured, according to a report released on Wednesday.

With the added cost, the yearly premiums for a family with coverage through an employer will average $10,979 in 2005, said the report from consumer group Families USA.

By 2010, the additional costs for the uninsured will be $1,502, and total premiums will hit $17,273. In 11 states, the costs of the uninsured will exceed $2,000 per family.

For individuals, the extra charge this year is estimated to be $341 on average, rising to $532 in 2010. Total premium charges for individuals will be $4,065 in 2005, and $6,115 in 2010.

I know I'm paying an extra $180/yr now because some dumbass with NO INSURANCE pulled into my lane and I ran into him. Plus, I'm out my $500 deductible so it's not just healthcare but car insurance, too.


IMO, though, the reason healthcare insurance is so expensive is because the stock market isn't performing as it was during the 90s. Insurance companies aren't making money on their investments so they get it from their policyholders.

[DBoon]

1. And who says government paid healthcare is too expensive??

n/t

[Roland99]

3. The people that want to keep the premiums flowing to private cos.

[progressivebydesign]

2. Great. We're all going to end up in the fucking poor house.

You know... this is just another way that the middle class is being pushed into fucking extinction. I got a cheery phone call from our insurance agent's secretary the other day about "changes to our auto insurance". I haven't returned the call, because I KNEW that it meant it would be more money for THEM, less for us.

Fucking insurance companies. Fucking uninsured drivers. We already had to deal with the insurance company raising house insurance rates last year... and having impossible deductibles on it now just to keep the rate sane. It's fucked up when your insurance agent tells you NOT to inquire about most claims and never make a claim unless something GIGANTIC happens to your house or car, otherwise you'll pay dearly or lose your coverage. HOw much money have I paid into these people for decades and NEVER got a cent back?

[Supersedeas]

17. subsidizing artificially inflated costs to encourage more insurance profit

[HeeBGBz]

25. Join the po folks club, baby

It's an ass gas.

[high density]

4. Right now I'm paying about $1600/yr for health insurance for myself

and that's the plan with a $1500 yearly deductible... My employer pays only $10 every two weeks toward the premium. Rates are going up in July so I'll be taking a pay cut next month.

[Roland99]

6. I'm lucky. I only pay $25/mo.

The company picks up the rest.

But, our insurance switched to a different provider and now the deductibles are double, the office co-pays went from $10 to $30, and prescription co-pays went up a bit, too.

[Daphne08]

23. My husband is paying over $5000

in co-pay just for the two of us. (Kids are grown.)

He was caught in a "downsizing frenzy" after many, many years with a large firm which paid everything (which is probably why he and so many of his co-workers were "downsized out the door" ), so now along with a cut in pay at my husband's new job... we're now also paying an extra $5000 for minimal coverage!

It would make me sick, but damn, I can't afford to get sick!

And the wealth just keeps "percolatin' up" in this Screw the Middle-Class economy. :grr:

[Klapaucius]

24. I imagine that I might be considered relatively lucky.

The company I work for allows me to make the choices, but also provides X amount to cover that, depending upon what I want. Since I'm required to cover my son after the divorce, I pay something like 350\paycheck to cover him and I, but the the amount that they cover is just a couple of bucks shy of that. Which allows me to afford decent coverage for him, and the dental isn't that much more, thankfully (since he's in braces). I've heard it called CAFE, and it seems to be a relatively good deal.

I've also heard recently that anyone who was hired this year ( I was hired last year) is not in the pension plan. I haven't really looked into it, but frankly, I wasn't really counting on SS or pension being there for me. If they are, so much the better, but given the way the administration is acting, I'll be lucky if SS is there, and given that the courts are allowing companies to renege on their pensions, I'll be surprised if that's there for me when I get old enough.

K.

[bemildred]

5. I don't want "Health Insurance", I want "Health Care".

Insurance is a scam. Health Insurance is a big scam.
Why can't we just buy Health Care?

[Warpy]

7. That is such BULLSHIT

I don't know if anybody else here is in my position. I have been uninsured for 18 years and working in healthcare that entire time.

I know what things cost to uninsured people, and I know what they cost to insurance companies. There's a cost shift, all right, but these crybaby insurance companies are no longer bearing any of it.

The truth is that the uninsured in this country are charged three to five times what an insurance company is charged for the same services and medications. That means, boys and girls, that the insurance companies are being subsidized on the backs of those who are least able to pay. Health care companies WILL get paid. They put liens against property (including homes and cars), garnish savings accounts, garnish wages, and even throw people into jail if a payment is missed.

Some patients are indigent and can't pay that huge amount of cash. That's when the state steps in with Medicaid.

This yowling about the cost to the poor, pathetic insurance companies that uninsured people present is just that, more right wing yowling that obscures the fact that they're making a killing on not only the people they insure, but on the sick people they refuse to insure in the form of subsidies paid through grotesquely inflated prices.

This is insane.

[Roland99]

8. You know, you're RIGHT! When I get my statements...

I always see HUGE discounts listed for the insurance provider. They're shown as "contracted discount" or something like that and they amount to sometimes as much as 60-70% of the line item's cost!

[FlaGranny]

11. I haven't been uninsured THAT long.

but I've been uninsured for the past two years. Haven't been able to work full time and I carried Cobra for the limit of 18 months. They wanted $800 a month to continue it. Other companies would not even consider covering me because of pre-existing conditions. Therefore, I am extremely happy to have turned 65 - who'd have thought anyone could be happy to be 65!! - and now I have a Medicare HMO. I lived in fear something would happen and I'd lose our mobile home and the land it sits on and which we own free and clear. Thankfully, I am healthy enough to have not needed medical care during the time I was uninsured.

I too worked in the healthcare field and witnessed all you describe. It's a "sinful" situation.

Edit: My homeowner's insurance nearly TRIPLED this year. Auto insurance has actually lowered a little bit in the last year.

[donkeyotay]

14. It's true, Warpy. They gouge the uninsured. nt

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. Bingo! Dead on! The greed of the insurance companies has no match.

[bigluckyfeet]

21. I went to the Lab Monday

and had a little blood work done,2 items cost me $185 cash,in Feb.it cost me $295,not counting $75 for the Dr. visit.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. That's the fraction of the present for profit system

that goes for the built in fraud, waste, abuse, duplication, and bureaucracy. A lot cheaper with a "single payer" system --

Woolhandler and Himmelstein, The high costs of for-profit care.
CMAJ. 2004 Jun 8;170(12):1814-5, http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/170/12/1814


Woolhandler S, Himmelstein DU. When money is the mission — the high costs of investor-owned care. N Engl J Med 1999;341:444-6
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/extract/341/6/444

Silverman, Skinner and Fisher, The association between for-profit hospital ownership and increased Medicare spending. N Engl J Med. 1999 Aug 5;341(6):444-6. http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/341/6/420

But Newt Gingrich's "Contract On America" tells us that's "Socialism."

[damntexdem]

10. You pay it one way, or you pay it another ...

better to pay it in a way that doesn't line the pockets of the insurors.

[theophilus]

12. When is the great mass of stupid stupid people in this country

going to wake up to the fact that National Health Care is a way out of all of these worsening problems? If done right, NHC will make this economy blossom and bear fruit in an almost miraculous manner. Of course the Insurance Companies and the Drug Companies are willing to spend "WHATEVER IT TAKES" to keep a NHC system from ever becoming reality. When corporations behave like murderers they should be "executed". That simple. Get rid of Insurance companies and Regulate the evil right out of the Drug companies.

Soon, no one (with a job or not) is going to have affordable health care. Oh well, I guess it is just God's will. That is why the great mass is not rising up to fix the problem. Soylent Green will be the most palatable choice, I guess.

[Roland99]

13. "If done right"...that's the KEY!

There's too much opportunity for corruption in a govt-run program like that.

Look at the Medicare prescription bill.

Look at the military.


Doing it right is almost an impossibility given the current state of our government. (and I don't just mean the GOP...I mean how money controls everything...not the constituents.)

[Coastie for Truth]

16. More likely to be done right by the Govt then by Bill Frist's

shareholder owned, for profit, HCA Healthcare.

[area51]

18. Hear, hear.

It's a win-win proposition for large cos./everyone to push for NHC. It's what's best for our country, & will increase employee productivity.

[Orangepeel]

19. Insurance companies aren't charging a lot because they have to

because of the stock market or whatever. Insurance companies are charging a lot because they can. As a rule, they aren't hurting for profits. They make billions.

[Vinca]

20. Golly, gee whiz. Finally something I don't have to worry about.

We let the insurance go in December when it reached $12,500 a year with a $4,500 deductible. Incidently, the policy excluded ANY out patient services, no drugs, no dental. So far we've been lucky and you all haven't had to pay for our care, but it's something we worry about each and every day. Maybe when big business tanks because of health care costs, the ruling class will be hit in the pocketbook and realize it's economically more sound to have universal care.

[Massacure]

22. Hell, your probably better off putting that $12,500 into bank accounts

After five years you have a nest egg of $60,000 which is probably sufficient to cover nearly anything.

[sam sarrha]

26. i paid $500 a year property taxe to local hospital in El Paso for Mexicans

free medical care.. my taxes were itemized..it wasnt uncommon for them to cross the border in labor to have their children free and citizens of the US.