Health Insurance rates rise at their lowest pace in 15 years

[bushisanidiot]

http://www.stltoday.com/news/opinion/columns/the-platform/article_60c6bd14-b6dd-11df-9968-00127992bc8b.html


"By The Editorial Board | Posted: Thursday, September 2, 2010 9:00 pm | (21) Comments


Even before Congress had passed health care reform, opponents were predicting immediate, sharp hikes in health insurance premiums. Since then, the drumbeat of impending doom only has gotten louder.

“Health care premiums are already soaring in advance of Obamacare,” Fox News reported just two weeks ago. That headline turns out to have been overstated.

The average cost of employer-provided health insurance rose just 3 percent this year, according to the authoritative Kaiser Family Foundation’s employer health benefits survey. That’s the lowest rate of increase since the mid-1990s.

Health insurance still is staggeringly expensive. The average cost of individual coverage now is $5,049. Employer-provided family coverage costs an average of $13,770. We pointed out last year that you can buy a car for less than it costs to insure a family. This year, it costs 3 percent more.

The cost of health insurance — especially for families — has skyrocketed in recent years. It’s up about 150 percent since 1998.

But those increases have nothing to do with health care reform. In fact, they’re one of the problems health care reform is designed to address.

Even with this year’s modest premium hike, many families will feel a greater pinch.

Since 2000, employers have been shifting more and more costs onto their workers. They’ve done it two ways: By hiking the portion of the insurance premiums that workers pay and by increasing co-payments and deductibles that must be met before full coverage kicks in.

While health insurance premiums climbed by an average of 114 percent since 2000, workers’ contributions to those costs grew by 147 percent." ....