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Yet Another Warning

By on March 13, 2012

A report just published in the Annals of Family Medicine claims that the costs of health care will exceed the take home pay of half the Americans workers by the year 2033. The investigators, Richard Young of John Peter Smith Hospital in Forth Worth, Texas, and Jennifer DeVoe of Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland, blame the continuing upward  slope of costs set against the relatively flat line of salaries and income in the country.

The investigators realize that the reform bill of 2009, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will do little to stem rising costs. Without further reform efforts, costs, which have flattened in recent years due mostly to more Americans losing access to care, will continue to increase faster than income. If health insurance premiums and national wages rise at current rates and there is no significant change in the current system, the average cost of a family health insurance premium will be half of the household income by the year 2021, and surpass the average household income twelve years later. This does not take into consideration out-of-pocket costs like co-pays which will likely increase in the future and move up the dates mentioned closer.

If we needed yet another reminder that the current job-related system of health insurance is unsustainable, here it is. If you believe health care coverage for working Americans is important to the over-all health of the economy, then it is time to wake up and smell the burning coffee. Repealing the 2009 Act, rolling back access, and doing nothing to address the problem are not an option. Neither is blocking access to birth control pills for women who need third-party assistance.

We have tried the ‘Compassionate Conservative’ approach to our economy and it does not work. We cannot go back to what existed in 1950. We should not even try. We must greet future challenges before they become present disasters. We need leadership that will guide us there. We need thinkers like Drs. Young and DeVoe.

 

Tom Godfrey

About Tom Godfrey

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