Employers Face 10.5 Percent Health Care Cost Increases

If corporate income taxes were raised 10.5%, all hell would break loose.

Aon Consulting surveyed more than 60 leading health care insurers, representing more than 100 million insured individuals, and found that health care costs are projected to increase by 10.4 percent for HMOs, 10.4 percent for POS plans, 10.7 percent for PPOs and 10.5 percent for CDH plans.

In addition, health care rate increases for retirees over the age of 65 are projected to be 6.6 percent for Medicare Supplement plans and 7.3 percent for Medicare Advantage plans.

The Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid deliberately to give the plans an unfair competitive advantage over the traditional Medicare program, with the intent of privatizing Medicare. Most of the extra payment is wasted in administration and profits, and what little benefit there is should be given to all Medicare beneficiaries, not just those enrolled in these plans.

The Medigap plans provide the worst value in the private insurance market. The insurers pay a much lower percentage of the premiums they collect for actual health care than they do in any of their other insurance product lines. Americans would be receiving a much greater value if the benefits of the Medigap plans were rolled into the traditional Medicare program, and these wasteful private supplemental plans were totally eliminated.

This Aon report should lead to two obvious conclusions: 1) get the private health plans out of our Medicare program, and 2) replace the private employer-sponsored plans with an improved Medicare program for all of us.

If you agree, let President Obama and the members of Congress hear your message loud and clear. Immediately.

Read it all at PNHP

Like Your Health Insurance? Maybe You Shouldn't.

However, the employer-based system has two major weaknesses. First, and most obviously, it means keeping your health insurance is dependent on keeping your job. That means that your health is only insured to the extent that your job is insured -- and your job isn't insured. If you lose your job, or get a divorce from the spouse whose employer covers you, you have to find a new employer who offers a health plan, or you will be stuck in the individual market. Alternatively, if you get sick, you may be stuck in your job, no matter how much you may want or need to leave it.

Second, employers are dropping their health plans; the percentage of people covered through an employer has dropped from 64 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2007, and that decline is likely to accelerate. Why? Because, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, the average annual premium for family coverage has already increased from $5,791 in 1999 to $12,680 in 2008 -- a 9 percent annual increase -- and a study published in Health Affairs forecasts that national health spending will grow at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent until 2017. Arithmetically, with each year that passes, it becomes harder for companies to keep their health plans without reducing benefits, reducing wages or increasing employee contributions to health plans.

The bottom line is that your current health plan may not be as good as you think it is, and there is a good chance that it will not be around when you need it.

Read it all at washingtonpost.com