Study: More Workers Drop Health Insurance

[lovuian]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/redir.php?jid=f5339b23f951e654&cat=a1e025da3c02ca7c

The percentage of eligible employees who enrolled in their companies' health insurance plans declined from 85.3 percent in 1998 to 80.3 percent in 2003. During that same time, insurance premiums for individuals jumped more than $1,000 nationally - from about $2,400 to about $3,400 a year.

Employers bore the brunt of that increase. They continue to pay about 83 percent of the costs of their workers' health insurance. But workers are finding it harder to come up with their share, says the report, which was published Thursday and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Researchers at the University of Minnesota analyzed the numbers for the report and broke them down state-by-state. They looked at surveys that the federal government conducts each year with employers. They found the largest declines in coverage of private-sector workers occurred in New Jersey, 11.7 percent; Nebraska 10.5 percent; and Wisconsin, 9.4 percent.




Then, the Urban Institute, a liberal think tank, looked at another survey from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which asked why people were uninsured. More than half of respondents blamed costs
more...

More and more Americans can not even afford health insurance if their jobs chip in... UNFREAKINGBELIEVABLE!!! Hello health insurance companies are pricing themselves out of business!!!

[LaPera]

1. Yeah, it bothers me how liberals are still quoting figures from four years

ago...The bullshit figure of "45 million without heath insurance in this country" Randi Rhodes still uses that figure all the time...It's propably doubled since that figure first came out and going up every day.

[lovuian]

2. I know this is 2003 can you imagine what 2006 is !!!

:-(

[Warpy]

4. Between the offshoring of good jobs that provided insurance

and the prohibitive cost of insurance in the jobs that are left, I'm sure the number has doubled.

Our health system is the cruelest in the world, rationed according to income and birthright.

[Erika]

3. America tumbling down into a third world country.

Via G.W.

[China_cat]

5. Why not drop it when what you end up paying for

is essentially a piece of paper that says 'good only until needed'?

[lovuian]

6. ChinaCat thats such a good point!!!

Your right all they will say is sorry we don't pay for this... Its such a racket...

[SLCPUNK]

7. If anybody

has had an HMO that denied paying their claims, then you also know how worthless insurance can be. Just because you pay for it, and "have it", doesn't mean they are going to pay! You can still end up paying in the end!

[winston61]

8. all part of the plan,

The insurers and employers won't risk bad publicity by simply dropping group plans. They will instead price them so high and strip benefits so that they won't be worth the paper they are printed on. Then insurers can say nobody 'wants' this product anymore and "we've got to adjust to market changes." But look at this new product, the health savings acoount. Never mind that they will only cherry pick young, healthy and affluent customers. They are not in the business to help people. They are in business to make profits and pay shareholders. If you can't afford the new product the answer will be "Fuck off and die". Profits will go up and the unhealthy will die. Far from pricing themselves out of business, profits will rise, because they no longer pay claims.

[raccoon]

9. I bet you're right about that.

"The insurers and employers won't risk bad publicity by simply dropping group plans. They will instead price them so high and strip benefits..."

To paraphrase what you said, the insurance companies aren't in business to pay claims.

[area51]

11. "... the insurance companies aren't in business to pay claims."

How true.

What they've been doing is to practice medicine w/o a license by deciding who lives & who dies. Insurance cos. are no better than mafiosi.

[DemonFighterLives]

10. The old eff off and die plan

I think you nailed it.

:rofl:

[SoCalDem]

20. That's how they work it.. AND how they justify NO raises, so the

employee gets hit twice..no pay raises, higher co-pays and limited coverage..and when the employee drops the plan, does his boss give HIM the money saved?? bet they don't..

Employers have life &death control over employees as well as control of their financial lives.. Is it any wonder why so many people are depressed and stressed?

[Sivafae]

12. Surprisingly, this is why I support, cough, the Heritage Foundation's ide

that employers stop carrying health insurance for their workers. I know, I know, THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION. But what the insurance industry has right now is a captive consumer, and if employers stopped carrying insurance for their workers, there would no longer be a captive consumer, and the industry would fall. I don't believe that this is what the heritage foundation had in mind. But if we are suppose to live in a "Free market" then those that pay for shit will decide. Supposedly.

[Yavin4]

13. That Won't Happen That Way

Employers still need high value-added employees like lawyers to keep them out of jail, accountants to cook the books, etc. So, they will allow these high value added employees to pay for health coverage and get huge tax breaks for doing so. Whereas the grunt workers, secretaries, clerical workers, etc. would have to work with no insurance.

[Yavin4]

14. As Long As People Vote Based on Gay Marriage, Guns, and Abortion

instead of real issues like healthcare, then things won't change. That's the real problem. White working class people, particularly in the South, vote based on gun rights, abortion, gay marriage, evolution, etc., and they are the ones that won't support a national single-payer healthcare system.

[CatholicEdHead]

15. "Universial Healthcare" has also been slammed so much in recent years

that many people think "Communist" or a similar term when referring to the system. Sad but true.

[winston61]

19. Politics and health care make strange bedfellows

As major corporations abandon health coverage THEY may be the ones who clamor for universal coverage. It's in their own interests. It saves them money, they get a workforce with good morale that is not worried about getting sick and dying. The insurers will shit, so it will be a contest of money going to legislators to get the bills passed or stalled. What a counrty the best congress money can buy.

[benEzra]

18. Defusing the gun issue is easy...

get Feinstein et al to stop trying to ban half the guns in people's gun safes.

The others are a bit more problematic...

The health care situation is a catastrophe. We paid between $10,000 and $15,000 out of pocket for medical expenses last year...in addition to $700/month insurance premiums...and we don't qualify for Medicaid/SSI on income grounds. If you make enough to pay taxes, in most states THERE IS NO SAFETY NET...

[caligirl]

16. Its too damn bad they have 31% overhead. Wonder what

premiums would be if the weren't raking in so much profit!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

17. That's total bull about companies paying 83% of the cost of their....

...workers' health insurance. I don't know where that number is coming from.

In fact, employees are now paying at least 80% of the total premiums, with the companies picking up the other 20%, if the employees are lucky.

[zann725]

21. That's where the REAL "disconnect" with Reps is. Even Kerry, who I support

generally...keeps stressing "children first" (for healthcare)...as if somehow Adults can "work" and pull-themselves-up-by-the-healthcare-bootstraps, and afford it somehow. Even the suggestions during '04 debate that FAMILIES might get "$1,00/year tax credit for paying for healthcare) is WOEFULLY inadequate, and terribly out-of-touch.

Most all TRUE mid-Americans lived paycheck to paycheck (even BEFORE the huge recent gas price jump). There was NO margin for costly monthly healthcare premiums, let alone "pre-existing condition" and "mid-age" (high premiuim) issues of often unemployed workers "in their prime" (which is so common). Then of course, there's the HIGH deductibles (often SEVERAL thousand) to meet first, AND the cost of prescription drugs, and costly co-pays on EACH doctor visit. ONE THOUSAND dollar rebate PER FAMILY, PER YEAR (reimbursed in RETROSPECT) is a joke for almost ALL true mid-American families. $10,000+ would be more realistic...or better yet, PUBLIC, EVERYONE-COVERED HEALTH CARE.

Aren't we the only industrialized nation in the worldnow NOT to have it?

[Rex]

22. The Truth: more workers cannot afford health insurance.

nt

[Vinca]

23. Wow - in 2003 we could still afford insurance.

That's the year it started to go up 25% a year. Do the math - we were on the hook for $9,000 in 2003. Do not get old and do not have a chronic condition in this country.