Health Care Affordability: Bad Now And Getting Worse

Health Care for America Now and the Institute for America's Future have teamed up for a report on affordability [1]. The conclusion shouldn't be surprising to anyone who actually has to pay for health care every month (that would exclude members of Congress):

• In the last nine years, the cost of health insurance has risen 120 percent while wages grew only 29 percent. Health insurance premiums have risen so high that experts forecast 52 million Americans will be uninsured next year.

The Institute for America's Future has a state-by-state interactive map [2] on the results (also see below) [3] that are particularly illuminating:

The geographical distribution of the data is interesting. States like Maine are faring the worst - meaning that Maine's Senators might have a real duty to fix the problem.

And how do we fix that problem?

• For families purchasing health insurance, subsidies based on the federal poverty level must be regionally adjusted to account for drastic cost-of-living variations among urban and rural areas.
• Individuals, employers and government have a shared responsibility to contribute to the cost of extending affordable health coverage to everyone.
• The government should not tax employer-sponsored health insurance benefits.
• Benefit packages should be comprehensive and defined as a benchmark for all insurance plans.
• There should be no annual or lifetime caps on benefits payable by a health insurance plan.

That's what we're going for with health reform, and making sure its affordable for our families is the key to the entire issue. Because clearly, this trend cannot continue.

Increase in cost of insurance as share of median income, from 2006 to 2016

70% and lower

71% to 85%

86% to 100%

101% to 115%

115% or higher

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A special health care affordability page [4] contains links to the affordability report, audio of a news conference featuring former Labor Secretary Robert Reich and a news release summarizing the conclusions.