U.S. health insurance premiums have climbed faster than wages and inflation this year, and look poised to accelerate in 2013, adding to voter concerns about soaring health-care costs ahead of November elections.It's important to remember that employer-provided health insurance is an artifact, and a perverse result, of wage and price laws enacted during World War II. We're still living with the unintended consequences of that government intervention in the market.
A study released on Tuesday showed premiums for employer-sponsored health plans, which cover about 149 million Americans, grew a modest 4 percent to $15,745 in 2012. It was a substantially slower rate of growth than in past years, including 2011, when premiums jumped 9 percent.
But the study's authors at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust, said higher costs still took a bigger bite from the income of middle-class employees, whose wages advanced only 1.7 percent, as employers shifted more health-care costs to their workers.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
I Thought This Wasn't Supposed to Happen
According to CNBC:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
Do you remember last year when I exclaimed over a fifteen percent increase in insurance premiums courtesy of Obamacare mandates? We saw a repeat this year as well.
Yes, but please show us the market-based system that is effectively controlling costs and providing high quality care.
Get government out of every (or even just most) corner of that portion of the economy and watch it happen.
Just wondering where such a model has ever been tried or effective. Or are we just guessing. And making assumptions. Because we know what happens when we assume.
I'm not seeing the government-involved-to-the-teeth method working at all.
Well, everywhere government *isn't* the dominant player the free market relentlessly drives down prices and improves the product. Everywhere government *is* involved prices go up and quality goes down.
Health care, not surprisingly, is no exception.
Don't worry though. Presently the ongoing revulsion with all things left will start to have an impact on the health care debate just as it's starting to have a substantive impact on the longest-existing socialist institution in the United States, the public education system.
But the government involved is working quite well in Sweden and Switzerland and Germany and the Netherlands and Singapore and Japan. By all measures it's working better than America's which has the least regulation and the highest costs producing worse results on a myriad of factors.
Certainly, there are plenty of countries that can be criticized over policy - and wait times. But that can't be argued as any worse than no access (other than emergency rooms where you can't treat chronic illness) for millions and skyrocketing costs charged by insurance and medical companies that are posting record profits.
Thus, the free-market paradise of low prices doesn't seem to exist. And the private sector control of health care distribution would seem to be an valid argument against your position.
Unless, there is some country or historical model that I've missed which validates your claims. Because I would love to hear it, and I would support it.
I don't accept that socialism "works", even in the countries you mention.
Oh, the "no-you're-wrong" defense. Very effective.
We're not those countries. What might work in a country with a small and fairly homogeneous population simply will not work here. Even Germany's population is barely larger than that of California and Texas put together, and its land area is smaller than Alaska's.
Single payer works in small countries with homogenous populations. But, as with defense matters, there is a shield over their healthcare.
Who do you think is the leading innovator in the world for medical advances? Hint: It ain't Sweden and Switzerland and Germany and the Netherlands and Singapore and Japan.
Their health care is, in effect, subsidized by the United States.
Yes, Luke and Mike. But do you then support the same arguments about education - that we can't apply lessons from Finland and Singapore to reform our systems. Because that would probably put you at odds with most people who oppose health care reform the way you do.
Post a Comment