This is hardly news to me but at least it got reported by McClatchey, though I doubt our Cable TV infotainment networks will give a damn about it since it has nothing in it that your large multinational corporations would like you to know about (unlike say, how big the Beckoning really was):
WASHINGTON — An annual survey released Thursday finds that workers are paying, on average, about $482 more for job-based family health insurance this year as companies force employees to shoulder more of the burden of health care costs.
The premium hike, up 14 percent from last year, means that workers are paying nearly all of a $495 increase in the average cost of family coverage this year.
A FOURTEEN percent increase may not matter much if you already receive income in excess of $250,000, but if your income is around the median income of approximately $52,000 that $482 is a big expense, especially since I doubt you received a matching 14% raise in your pay. More than likely, if you still have a job your income level actually declined in either relative or real terms.
But hey, this is America. It could be worse. You could be unemployed. I’m sure that’s what your boss would say if you complained about this rate hike.
By the way, have a wonderful Labor Day Weekend!
the rate hike is well known, and more are coming for 2011. How do you think THAT is going to play when Americans start buying their mandatory policies and they realize there’s not much affordability? I know for a FACT that if my employer dumps us on the exchange (as many large employers are doing, and for the nonprofit I work at, benefits are a huge cost-center) I won’t be able to afford the plans on the exchange, even WITH a subsidy (which in my case is way to small to offset more than a few gumballs).
So when do the cost controls for health insurance reform kick in?
When Booman asks why the enthusiasm gap, one thing I can point to is this inclination to promise one thing and deliver something different. “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act”, which (to my eyes at least) doesn’t seem to do much of either. Or the FISA Amendments Act, which was going to strengthen FISA but which really protected telecoms at the expense of people’s rights.
It’s not just the democrats who do it, the republicans gave us “Operation Iraqi Freedom” which should have been called “War for Oil” and “medicare Part D” which should have been called “Medicine or Heat: Which Can I Afford”.
People are going to read about this hug rate increase and say “I have to pay how much more? And if i don’t pay, the IRS is going to hit me with a penalty? And WHO passed this into law?”