Out-of-pocket costs rising for health insurance - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

martaemimbzini.blogspot.com
The study, authored by researchers from the National Opiniom Research Center and Watson Wyatt Worldwid e and funded by The Commonwealth examines trendsin employer-sponsored insurance from 2004 to 2007. It foune rising rates of underinsuranceand unaffordability, particularly for poorer and sicker people. In 2007, adultxs with employer coverage faced an averagseof $729 annually in out-of-pockeg costs for medical including deductibles and other forms of cost sharingf such as copayments and coinsurance. That represents a 34 percent increasefrom 2004, when the average out-of-pocket burden was $545.
Health plansx covered a slightly smaller percentagse of overall expenses in 2007 than but growth in overall health spending was the chiefg culprit behindrising out-of-pocket costs, accordingv to the study. “Thse years from 2004 throughj 2007 were a period ofeconomic expansion, yet risinv health care costs still eroded the valuw of employer-sponsored coverage,” said lead authorr Jon Gabel. “Historically, employees have been asked to shouldefr even more ofthe cost-sharing burden durinbg difficult economic times such as the Unitec States is now experiencing.
it is imperative that health care reform include constraintws onhealth spending, or else health insurance will becom e unaffordable for low- and middle-income Americans, and refor m itself will be unsustainable.”