Health insurance premiums for people who buy coverage by themselves are soaring, according to a study released Monday. While lawmakers debated the health care reform bill, health insurance companies were trying with a lot of effort to make as much money as they could before the law’s provisions kick in. Individuals facing sharp increases in their insurance premiums are trying to save money by settling for fewer benefits and higher deductibles. In the mean time, steadily increasing insurance premiums and a drop in the number of employers offering health coverage swelled the ranks of the uninsured by nearly 3 million individuals in 2009.
Article Resource: People who purchase health insurance on their own facing steep hikes
Health insurance cost trends
Premium hikes for health insurance for individuals far exceed increases within the premiums for employer-sponsored coverage, according to a new survey on health insurance cost trends from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The Associated Press reports the non-profit foundation said premium hikes for individual coverage averaged 20 percent. Customers who were able to switch to cheaper plans brought the average increase in what individuals are paying for health insurance down to 13 percent. This year’s individual health insurance premium spike tops last year’s 5 percent average increase for employer-sponsored family coverage. Health insurance cost trends for some of the employer-sponsored single coverage held steady.
Costly medical insurance for individuals
The rising cost of health insurance for individuals made news when Anthem Blue Cross tried to raise its rates by as much as 39 percent in California. As outlined by the New York Times, the Kaiser study sheds light on how widespread these premium hikes are. As outlined by the New York Times, when the proposed Anthem hikes were met with outrage from federal and state officials, there was little information about how widespread such increases were in other parts of the country. Drew Altman, the Kaiser foundation’s president and chief executive, told the Times that "The survey shows the steep increases we are reading about over the last several months aren’t just extreme cases."
A long wait to health care reform
The Kaiser survey highlights all of the challenges that about 14 million people younger than 65 who purchase their coverage in the individual market will face until changes under the health care reform law kick in 2014. All Americans could be required to have health insurance by then. In the meantime, 52 percent of respondents in the Kaiser survey who buy individual health coverage said they would keep their current plan next year, when 32 percent said they weren’t sure. 14 percent said that they would probably switch companies to cut costs.
High deductibles on health insurance plans
To conserve money, people are switching their individual health insurance plans to higher deductibles. The average deductible is $ 2,500. There is an annual deductible of $ 5,000 or a lot more. The number of those who have high deductibles has risen from 39 percent in 2007 to almost 47 percent in 2009.
Health coverage being lost by millions
For the 2.9 million U.S. adults who joined the ranks of the uninsured in 2009, health care reform does little to help them with their current needs. USA Today reports that in 2009 — the latest statistics accessible — 46.3 million American adults had no health insurance coverage, according to a new report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s about one in five working-age adults with no health insurance coverage. The percentage of uninsured adults climbed from 19.7 percent to 21.1 percent in 2009, and 58.5 percent of American adults went without insurance for at least part of the year.
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Associated Press
google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5je_4AEzpzQnfbTmeeOg1yUO9jWRgD9GFOU080
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/06/22/business/22kaiser.html?src=busln
USA Today
usatoday.com/news/health/2010-06-20-uninsured-reform_N.htm
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