Thursday, December 28, 2006
Health insurance costs in Washington State far outstripped increases in workers reimburse over the past six years, at a rate other than eight times that of the increase in the typical pay of working families. This finding was part of a national analysis of the cost of health care premiums relation to workers' earnings conducted by Families USA, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit health care support group.
"Washington State actually had a worse situation over the last six years than what is experienced around the rest of the country," said Ron Pollack, the organization's executive director. Premiums rose somewhat faster in Washington than in many other states, he said, while earnings improved slightly slower. "That's why people in the state are experiencing a greater pinch over the last six years, greater than elsewhere," Pollack said.
In Washington, health insurance costs rose by 89.2 percent, according to the study, while median income for employees working a 40-hour week increased by 11 percent over the six-year period. Washington's increases in health care costs qualified to growth in wages trailed only South Carolina, Tennessee and Ohio.
The elevated costs of health insurance puts more people at risk of becoming uninsured, Pollack said, in a state where a projected 800,000 people don't have health insurance. Those who can meet the expense of insurance often are paying more and getting less coverage, he said, with higher deductibles, co-pays, and fewer benefits. Workers in the lowest one-third of profits levels are disproportionately affected by increasing health care costs, said Dr. Bob Crittenden, head of family medicine at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle and a national board member of Families USA.
They pay a standard 17 percent of their income on out-of-pocket health care costs, he said. The nonprofit Community Health Center of Snohomish County has seen the contact of rising costs of health care demonstrated in two ways: a jump in the number of uninsured patients and increasing health care costs for its own employees, said Ken Green, executive director.
Although the cost of health insurance has been increasing, the rate of increase has begun to slow, said Charlie Fleet, a spokesman for Regence Blue Shield. The Kaiser Family Foundation in California newly initiate that during the last year, the national increase in health insurance costs was 7.7 percent, he noted. Consumers do have ways of calculating costs, he said.
posted by renaa
@ 2:34 PM
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