Health Insurance Premiums to Rise 94% by 2020: Report

A report released Thursday by the Commonwealth Fund, a 90-year-old non-profit health care charity, shows what's on the line without health care reform: a 94% increase in health insurance premiums.

The analysis of health care costs, called "Paying the Price: How Health Insurance Premiums Are Eating Up Middle-Class Incomes," forecasts that employer-sponsored family plans will rise from an average cost of $12,298 in 2008 to $23,842 in 2020. In contrast, the same coverage would have cost around $9,200 in 2003.

The title has the key point: middle-class. Don't think health care costs just affects the poor; it's eating away at middle-class incomes as earnings stagnate for the middle-class, and health care costs increase.

It should also be clear that corporations will continue to pass more health care costs onto workers. Anyone watching the state of union contract negotiations should see that's the first thing the corporations want. It will only get worse for the American worker.

In response, Deborah Burger, RN, co-president of the 86,000-member California Nurses Association / National Nurses Organizing Committee said the following (emphasis mine):

"These findings are merely the shocking state of premiums, not even including a concurrent jump in out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-pays, and other fees. It's no wonder that medical bills now are the leading factor in 62 percent of bankruptcies, and half of American families are rationing medical care because they can't afford it.

"Yet, rather than show any compassion for how their price gouging practices have harmed so many families, the insurance giants are planning to continue to plunder the American people with more huge increases in premium prices.

"Such practices should remind us why there is such a desperate need for real reform. Unfortunately, there is little in the major plans being discussed to crack down on the pricing practices of the insurance industry. The most effective approach is the one that has worked in other industrial countries, a single-payer or national system."

"Congress and the administration still has time to pass legislation that will protect American families facing rationing, denial of care, and bankruptcy due to the disgraceful insurance industry policies. Medicare for all remains the most universal, most cost-effective solution to this crisis."

The California Nurses Association has long supported the "Medicare for All" bill.

It's interesting how those against health care reform continue to use disinformation rather than facts and statistics.

Fact: 62% of bankruptcies are related to unex0pected medical expenses.

Disinformation: death panels

Fact: insurance companies ration health care by denying treatment. Families ration care because they cannot afford it.

Disinformation: grandma won't be able to get hip replacement surgery

Fact: UNICEF statistics state that the U.K., Cuba, and Canada have lower infant mortality than us. The U.K. and Canada have longer lifespans; Cuba the same. Cuba! Many consider it a 3rd-world country!

We need to start talking about numbers, like lifespan, rather than nonsense and lies, like death panels.