Healthcare Solutions
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)
Health insurance companies are sticking it to Americans more than ever:
The cost of health insurance for many Americans this year climbed more sharply than in previous years, outstripping any growth in workers’ wages and adding more uncertainty about the pace of rising medical costs.
A new study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonprofit research group that tracks employer-sponsored health insurance on a yearly basis, shows that the average annual premium for family coverage through an employer reached $15,073 in 2011, an increase of 9 percent over the previous year.
“The open question is whether that’s a one-time spike or the start of a period of higher increases,” said Drew Altman, the chief executive of the Kaiser foundation.
The steep increase in rates is particularly unwelcome at a time when the economy is still sputtering and unemployment continues to hover at about 9 percent. Many businesses cite the high cost of coverage as a factor in their decision not to hire, and health insurance has become increasingly unaffordable for more Americans. Over all, the cost of family coverage has about doubled since 2001, when premiums averaged $7,061, compared with a 34 percent gain in wages over the same period.
Any policy analyst with half a brain knows that some form of single-payer or modified single-payer system is the only solution for this mess. Now isn’t the time to rehash old battles over the public option and the ACA debate. More could certainly have been done to create a better outcome from the grand healthcare fight.
But ultimately, the corruption in Washington, particularly in the Senate, is such that no coherent answer to this mess is likely to come at a federal level, nor would it have been possible for President Obama to finagle a single-payer system out of this Congress.
And while much of what the ACA does is dramatically helpful to a vast number of people, especially those between 18-26 (many more of whom now have health insurance) and those previously denied coverage due to pre-existing conditions (many of whom are being helped in other ways by the Administration as well), the political picture is muddled at best:
How much the new federal health care law pushed by President Obama is affecting insurance rates remains a point of debate, with some analysts suggesting that insurers have raised prices in anticipation of new rules that would, in 2012, require them to justify any increase of more than 10 percent.
In addition to increases caused by insurers getting ahead of potential costs, some of the law’s provisions that are already in effect — like coverage for adult children up to 26 years of age and prevention services like mammogram screening — have contributed to higher expenses for some employers.
No doubt there’s a little of both: insurance companies are using the ACA as an excuse for more profiteering at the expense of sick and injured Americans. But it also stands to reason that as the burden of cost shifts more to employers, employers are pushing back. Beyond the greedy megacorps, there are a lot of struggling small and medium-sized businesses out there for whom the ACA does legitimately cause a significant burden. In this complex political morass, Democrats won’t get a lot of public relations traction for a law that is mildly beneficial for certain slices of the country, and that bends the cost curve in some places while allowing excuses for cost increases in others.
Ultimately, providing healthcare should neither be on the backs of employers nor at the mercy of greedy insurance companies. Good access to quality healthcare (including preventive care) is a basic human right. That should be the Democratic message. Period.
And since Washington looks like it won’t be providing answers any time soon, the answers are going to have to come at the state level. In that context, state and local races are vastly important, but are often overlooked as everyone concentrates their time and attention on the giant disco ball that is federal politics.
Affordable access to healthcare remains a crisis in this country, and it’s one that only your state senators and assemblymembers are going to be able to solve. At this point, the often overlooked battle for statehouses and governorships is on a par with federal politics when it comes to solving the nation’s problems.
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