In The Oregonian, Joe Rojas-Burke reports:
Health insurance for a family could cost more than the annual earnings of half of U.S. households by 2033, if premiums and wages continue at the current pace.
As a result, the health system is headed toward a meltdown unless the country can agree on reforms that substantially curb the growth of spending, according to an analysis co-authored by Dr. Jennifer DeVoe of Oregon Health & Science University.
“It’s an unsustainable system,” says DeVoe, a family medicine physician and associate professor.
He continues:
Health insurance costs have raced ahead of wages for years. Annual premiums for employer-sponsored family health coverage exceeded $15,000 last year, up 9 percent from 2010, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research & Educational Trust. From 2000 to 2009, premiums jumped 8 percent a year on average; incomes rose about 2 percent a year. DeVoe and co-author Dr. Richard Young projected growth of insurance costs and wages based on those trends.
Their projections factored in the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the Affordable Care Act would curb private health insurance costs to 7 percent a year. Even so, the average cost of a typical family’s insurance premium will equal half of household income by 2022. Include out-of-pocket costs and we reach 50 percent 2018.
“It rings true,” says Don Antonucci, president of Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon. “The system we have today is clearly broken.”
Read the whole story in The Oregonian.
What do you think? Add your thoughts below.
Recent Comments