Third of Young U.S. Adults Lack Health Insurance
February 26, 2010
Reuters
By JoAnne Allen
A third of young U.S. adults — nearly 13 million people — had no health insurance coverage in 2008, according to a government report released on Wednesday.
The survey of more than 9,000 people aged 20 to 29 by the National Center for Health Statistics found that 30 percent of young adults had no coverage and were almost twice as likely as adults aged 30 to 64 to be uninsured.
People aged 20 to 29 account for more than a quarter of the estimated 45 million uninsured people in the United States, although they make up just 14 percent of the overall population, said Robin Cohen, who worked on the report.
The uninsured rates for people aged 20 to 29 are typically high because their coverage is disrupted as they move from childhood into adulthood, when they may be losing the coverage they had through their parents’ insurance or have reached the age limit for coverage under a public program, Cohen said in a telephone interview.
“They may be taking jobs of lower wages or temporary jobs typically available to young adults and many of these jobs often come with limited or no health benefits,” Cohen added.
The White House offered a plan on Monday that would allow young adults up to age 26 to stay on a parent’s health insurance plan but would not require employers to offer insurance.
The administration plan is aimed at closing gaps between House of Representatives and Senate legislation in order to revive its effort to overhaul the $2.5 trillion healthcare industry.
The government’s report said lack of health insurance coverage may “leave young adults vulnerable to high out-of-pocket expenses in the event of a serious illness or injury.”
“Young adulthood is also a time that there’s a high risk created for unintended pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, substance abuse and injury and these are things that are directly related to the need for health care services,” Cohen said.
More findings from 2008 National Health survey:
* Although 58 percent of those surveyed had private health insurance coverage, men with insurance were less likely than women to seek medical services.
* Young adults with no insurance were four times as likely as those with private insurance and two times as likely as those with Medicaid to have unmet medical need.
* Uninsured young women were almost twice as likely as uninsured young men to have had unfilled prescriptions in the past year.
* 10 percent of young adults needed medical care in the past year but did not get it due to cost.
Click here for the full report
White House to Unveil Health Care Plan
February 22, 2010 by joel
Filed under Government
February 22, 2010
Good Morning America
By Jake Tapper
The White House this morning unveiled President Obama’s health care plan and the changes he wants to make to the Senate Democratic health care bill. Even before the release of the proposal, it had already met with fierce Republican resistance.
The plan will reduce the deficit by $100 billion over the next decade, and more than $1 trillion in the years after that, and expand health care to 31 million more Americans, according to the White House.
Administration officials call the health care bill a “jumping-off” point for Thursday’s televised, bipartisan discussions on health care overhaul.
“This is our take on the best way to merge the House and Senate bills,” a senior White House official told ABC News. The official said the proposal was “informed by our conversations from negotiations” before Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., was elected, thus depriving Democrats of their 60-vote majority, as well as from subsequent discussions.
“We thought it would be a more productive meeting if we brought one consolidated plan to use as jumping-off point,” the official said. “We hope the Republicans do the same.”
The White House proposal doesn’t just represent ideas but a potential strategy — to have the House pass the Senate bill, with fixes to come to make it more palatable.
With Brown’s win in Massachusetts last month, Democrats no longer have a supermajority, so they would pass the “fix” using a controversial maneuver that requires only 51 votes.
White House officials are signaling that Thursday’s discussion won’t be just a parlor meeting to chat about health care principles, though they insist their minds will be open to incorporate some Republican ideas.
“Maybe we’ll sit across from each other and identify 10 things we can move forward on,” the official said. “We hope new ideas come to the table. The proposal we’re walking into the meeting with is not the same one we will walk out of the meeting with.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., believes passing the bill is “possibly doable,” the senior White House official said. “But she may ultimately decide the math is impossible.”
If that does not work, the next plan is to push a more modest bill — a smaller expansion of health insurance reform, some tax breaks for small businesses to help provide insurance for employees, a more modest expansion of Medicaid and the creation of the health insurance exchanges.
Among the fixes to the Senate bill that the president is proposing are “an additional series of measures proposed by Republicans to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse,” a White House official said. “The president believes the bipartisan discussion on Thursday will be the most productive if Democrats come to the table with a consolidated proposal — what he’s releasing today — and he hopes the Republicans will follow suit and come with their own unified proposal. He’ll be open to Republican ideas, and he hopes they’ll be open to ours.”
For the president, the conversation starts with four key parts of the Senate health care bill, which passed on Christmas Eve after weeks of deadlock.
First are insurance reforms, such as prohibiting insurers from denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions, a reform that Republicans have also said they would like to see happen.
Second, as proposed in both the House and Senate bills, the president wants to see health insurance exchanges created at the state level to ensure competition, a thorny point for Republicans.
Third, there would be no option of a government-run insurance plan that would compete with the private sector. The House health care bill includes a public option, but the Senate legislation does not, and even though the president initially pushed a public option as part of a health care overhaul package, he has said that to achieve compromise that aspect would need to be given up. Republicans are staunchly against any public option, saying it would hurt competition and the private sector.
Fourth, all Americans would be required to have health insurance coverage, and Medicaid would be expanded for low- and middle-income Americans to purchase health insurance. Both are points of contention for Republicans.
Click here for the full report
FDA to Increase Oversight of Medical Radiation Scanners
February 11, 2010
The New York Times
By Walt Bogdanich and Rebecca R. Ruiz
The federal Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it would take steps to more stringently regulate three of the most potent forms of medical radiation, including increasingly popular CT scans, some of which deliver the radiation equivalent of 400 chest X-rays.With the announcement, the F.D.A. puts its regulatory muscle behind a growing movement to make life-saving medical radiation — both diagnostic and therapeutic — safer.
Last week, the leading radiation oncology association called for enhanced safety measures. And a Congressional committee was set to hear testimony Wednesday on the weak oversight of medical radiation, but the hearing was canceled because of bad weather.
The F.D.A. has for weeks been investigating why more than 300 patients in four hospitals were overradiated by powerful CT scans used to detect strokes. The overdoses were first discovered last year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where patients received up to eight times as much radiation as intended.
The errors occurred over 18 months and were detected only after patients lost their hair.
In making the announcement, the F.D.A. said it hoped to reduce unnecessary radiation exposure from three medical imaging procedures: CT scans, which provide three-dimensional images; nuclear medicine studies, in which patients are given a radioactive substance and doctors watch it move through the body; and fluoroscopies, in which a radiation-emitting device provides a continuous internal image on a monitor.
“These types of imaging exams expose patients to ionizing radiation, a type of radiation that can increase a person’s lifetime cancer risk,” the F.D.A. said. “Accidental exposure to very high amounts of radiation also can cause injuries, such as skin burns, hair loss and cataracts.”
Patients today receive far more radiation than ever before. The average lifetime dose of diagnostic radiation — excluding therapeutic radiation — has increased sevenfold since 1980, prompting widespread concerns that certain procedures are overused and that they needlessly expose patients to an increased risk of cancer. Children and women are particularly vulnerable.
Last month, The New York Times documented the harm that can result when complex machines that generate radiation are programmed incorrectly and when basic safety procedures are not followed. The Times also found that a patchwork of laws and regulations to protect patients are weak or unevenly applied.
The F.D.A. has long had jurisdiction over medical devices, but it has made limited use of its power. Consumer groups, for example, have repeatedly contended that the agency allows manufacturers to sell new devices without first having to prove their safety and efficacy.
In its announcement, the agency said it might require manufacturers of CT scanners and fluoroscopic devices to incorporate new safeguards into the design of their machines and to provide better training to medical personnel. The agency said it plans to hold a public meeting on March 30 and 31, “to solicit input on what requirements to establish.”
Among the proposals under consideration: that devices display, record and report equipment settings and radiation dose; that an alert be issued when the radiation dose exceeds an optimal dose for most patients; and that devices be required to capture and transmit radiation dose information to a patient’s electronic medical record and to national dose registries.
The F.D.A. said it would also work with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to incorporate new safety practices into the accreditation process of imaging facilities and hospitals.
“I think it is very timely in light of concerns about radiation exposure and the possibility of overexposure,” said Dr. James Thrall, professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School and chairman of the American College of Radiology. “I think it will nudge the industry.”
A major issue, Dr. Thrall said, is that “there is nothing on the machine that tells the technologist that they’ve dialed in a badly incorrect radiation exposure.”
Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, director of the F.D.A.’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said manufacturers were generally supportive of the agency’s proposal. “We are using a variety of tools available to us — both regulatory in nature and collaborative in nature — to maximize benefits,” Dr. Shuren said.
The Medical Imaging and Technology Alliance, an association of manufacturers of radiological equipment, issued a statement supporting the F.D.A. initiative, while calling for mandatory accreditation of advanced imaging facilities and for establishing minimum standards for personnel who perform medical imaging exams and deliver radiation therapy treatments.
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Miami Psychiatrist Wrote 1,000 Prescriptions a Week
January 18, 2010
Health News Florida
By Carol Gentry
Since 2004, a Miami psychiatrist has prescribed almost 14 million pills to Medicaid patients at a cost to taxpayers of $43 million, a state agency says.
Fernando Mendez-Villamil would have had to issue 4,000 prescriptions a month, or 1,000 a week, to keep up that pace, according to the report released this week by the Agency for Health Care Administration. Altogether in the six years from 2004-09, he issued nearly 285,000 prescriptions, the AHCA report showed.
However, AHCA noted that that total counts a refill as a prescription. The agency said its report does not conclude that Mendez-Villamil’s prescribing is improper; its investigation continues.
Mendez-Villamil’s status as the most prolific prescriber in the state was already known, based on a report released in December of a 21-month period in 2007-09. But that period was mild compared to the years before, the new data show, and a timeline suggests that the prescribing slowed down markedly after the state began implementing computer tracking and other controls.
His highest-prescribing year in the period studied was 2004, when he issued about 62,400 prescriptions that cost Medicaid $12.2 million, according to the chart. The number of patients: that year: 2,695. A quick calculation shows that he issued 23 prescriptions (or refills) per patient, for a total of more than 1,200 pills apiece.
Sen. Don Gaetz, chairman of the health regulation committee, said Mendez-Villamil “appears to be taking advantage of the taxpayers of Florida and draining money away from legitimate patients. He should be the poster boy for tougher enforcement actions.”
Gaetz said he will ask sharp questions of AHCA officials at a hearing in Tallahassee on Tuesday because he senses that lawmakers have been “slow-rolled” — repeatedly reassured that problems in Medicaid will be fixed, only to see little progress.
“We need to be all over this guy” Mendez-Villamil, said Gaetz, R-Niceville. “We ought to be looking over his shoulder.”
AHCA, which conducted the in-depth review of the psychiatrist’s prescribing at Gaetz’s request, released the results to Health News Florida as part of a broader freedom-of-information request.
Mendez-Villamil, reached by phone on Thursday, said his attorney had asked him not to speak to the media. The attorney, Robert Pelier of Miami, said he had not seen the report and questioned why AHCA was “willing to share that information with you and not me.”
Pelier suggested that AHCA was trying to pressure psychiatrists to stop prescribing “atypical antipsychotics,” which are more expensive than older drugs for treating severe mental illness. When told of the results of the review, Pelier said, “Based on the amount of patients he sees, it’s well within normal range.”
Mendez-Villamil’s status as high-prescriber came to light in mid-December when The Miami Herald named him as the psychiatrist targeted in a letter of protest to federal Medicaid officials from Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Finance Committee.
Grassley had learned of the psychiatrist from a report by the University of South Florida’s behavioral therapy experts, who were commissioned to profile prescribing patterns from the last half of 2007 through the first quarter of 2009. That report did not have names, but the Herald obtained the name through other AHCA records.
In an interview, Mendez-Villamil told The Herald in December that he prescribes only what is necessary. His practice style – seeing patients for 10 minutes every two or three months for medication checks – enables him to handle a large caseload, and many patients are on four or five different drugs, he said.
“When you know the patient, and the patient is stable, 10 minutes is long enough,” the Herald quoted him as saying.
The mental health drugs that he frequently prescribes are expensive even at the online Drugstore.com, the Herald noted: Zyprexa, about $842 a month for 30 days; Abilify, $634; and Seroquel, $430.
AHCA noted in its response to Gaetz that the psychiatrist is one of several “top prescribing outliers” who are under investigation by the agency’s Bureau of Medicaid Program Integrity.
The agency referred a complaint about Mendez-Villamil to the Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit in 2007, a timeline shows, and a spokeswoman for that office said the investigation is still ongoing. In 2008, AHCA began to require prior authorization for prescriptions of certain pricey medications that the agency suspected were over-prescribed.
Mendez-Villamil’s prescribing dropped off sharply between 2004 and 2009, the AHCA chart shows. While some of the dropoff came with a reduction in the number of patients he saw by about one-fourth, the quantity of drugs plummeted by two-thirds – from 3.3 million a year in 2004 to 1.1 million in 2009.
When it comes to psychiatric medications, AHCA is under pressure from many directions: Some patient advocates fear there is over-prescribing to keep Medicaid patients docile, and that the danger is especially great with children, particularly in foster care. They point to last year’s suicide of a 7-year-old foster child who was on such medications, a death that led to a continuing series of meetings to hash out drug guidelines for children.
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Reid’s Government-Run Plan Requires a Monthly Abortion Fee
December 21, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
December 21, 2009
John Boehner
Fixed it is not. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) latest health care “manager’s amendment” would STILL levy a new “abortion premium” fee on Americans under the Democrats’ health care plan. Just like the original 2,032-page, government-run health care plan from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) and the last version of Senator Reid’s 2,074-page bill, this latest 383-page amendment levies an abortion premium and does not fix the problem of government funds being used to subsidize elective abortions.
Under Reid’s “manager’s amendment,” there is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally subsidized plans participating in the Exchange. Instead the amendment includes layers of accounting gimmicks that demand that plans participating in the Exchange or the new government-run plan that will be managed by the Office of Personnel Management must establish “allocation accounts” when elective abortion is a covered benefit (p. 41). Everyone enrolled in these plans must pay a monthly abortion premium (p. 41, lines 5-8), and these funds will be used to pay for the elective abortion services. The Reid amendment directs insurance companies to assess the cost of elective abortion coverage (p. 43), and charge a minimum of $1 per enrollee per month (p. 43, lines 20-22).
In short, the Reid bill continues to defy the will of the American people and contradict longstanding federal policy by providing federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions. The new language does include a “state opt-out” provision if a state passes a law to prohibit insurance coverage of abortion, but it’s a sham because it does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states.
A majority of Americans believe that health care plans should not be mandated to provide elective abortion coverage, and a majority of Americans do not believe government health care plans should include abortion coverage. Currently, federal appropriations bills include language known as the Hyde Amendment that prohibits the use of federal funds to pay for elective abortions under the Medicare and Medicaid programs, while another provision, known as the Smith Amendment, prohibits federal funding of abortion under the federal employees’ health benefits plan. Under the Reid “manager’s amendment” the new health care plan that will mirror the federal employees’ plan and be managed by the Office of Personnel Management will NOT be subject to the Smith Amendment.
Leader Reid’s latest health care proposal is an affront to the American people and drastically moves away from current policy. In a statement released by National Right to Life Committee legislative director Douglas Johnson said, “The new abortion language solves none of the fundamental abortion-related problems with the Senate bill, and it actually creates some new abortion-related problems.” The American people deserve more from their government than being forced to pay for abortion. The pro-life Stupak/Pitts amendment passed the House by a vote of 240 to 194, enjoying the overwhelming support of 176 Republicans and 64 Democrats. The Stupak/Pitts Amendment codifies current law by prohibiting federal funding of elective abortions under any government-run plan or plans available under the Exchange. The Reid plan ignores the will of a bipartisan majority of the House, and indeed the American people, by rejecting this bipartisan amendment.
Health care reform should not be used as an opportunity to use federal funds to pay for elective abortions. Health reform should be an opportunity to protect human life – not end it – and the American people agree. House Republicans have offered a common-sense, responsible solution that would reduce health care costs and expand access while protecting the dignity of all human life. The Republican plan, available at HealthCare.GOP.gov, would codify the Hyde Amendment and prohibit all authorized and appropriated federal funds from being used to pay for abortion. And under the Republican plan, any health plan that includes abortion coverage may not receive federal funds.
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Obama Warns USA Will Go Bankrupt Without Health Bill
December 18, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
December 18, 2009
ABC News
By Karen Travers
President Obama told ABC News’ Charles Gibson in an interview that if Congress does not pass health care legislation that will bring down costs, the federal government “will go bankrupt.”
The president laid out a dire scenario of what will happen if his health care reform effort fails.
“If we don’t pass it, here’s the guarantee….your premiums will go up, your employers are going to load up more costs on you,” he said. “Potentially they’re going to drop your coverage, because they just can’t afford an increase of 25 percent, 30 percent in terms of the costs of providing health care to employees each and every year. “
The president said that the costs of Medicare and Medicaid are on an “unsustainable” trajectory and if there is no action taken to bring them down, “the federal government will go bankrupt.”
“This actually provides us the best chance of starting to bend the cost curve on the government expenditures in Medicare and Medicaid,” Obama said.
Watch Charlie Gibson’s interview with President Obama tonight on World News.
Obama told Gibson that anybody who says they are concerned about the rising deficit or worried about tax increases in the future has to support this health care bill.
“Because if we don’t do this, nobody argues with the fact that health care costs are going to consume the entire federal budget,” the president said.
Obama is facing an increasingly skeptical American public when it comes to his push for health care reform.
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found that support for the health care reform package, while never robust, is now at a low ebb and opposition has been steadily growing stronger in intensity.
For the first time, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of the president’s work on health care (53 percent) and oppose the health care reform package making its way through Congress (51 percent, compared to 44 percent approval).
That seven-point margin for opposition is its most to date — indeed statistically significant for the first time — and the differential in intensity of sentiment has grown since September.
Poor Children More Likely to get Antipsychotic Drugs
December 14, 2009
New York Times
By Duff Wilson
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?
The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.
On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by an estimated 300,000 people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.
Meanwhile, a group of Medicaid medical directors from 16 states, under a project they call Too Many, Too Much, Too Young, has been experimenting with ways to reduce prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs among Medicaid children.
They plan to publish a report early next year.
The Rutgers-Columbia study will also be published early next year, in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. But the findings have already been posted on the Web, setting off discussion among experts who treat and study troubled young people.
Some experts say they are stunned by the disparity in prescribing patterns. But others say it reinforces previous indications, and their own experience, that children with diagnoses of mental or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.
Part of the reason is insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do. Part of it may have to do with the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.
“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”
Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.
After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.
“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.”
Because there can be long waits to see the psychiatrists accepting Medicaid, it is often a pediatrician or family doctor who prescribes an antipsychotic to a Medicaid patient — whether because the parent wants it or the doctor believes there are few other options.
Some experts even say Medicaid may provide better care for children than many covered by private insurance because the drugs — which can cost $400 a month — are provided free to patients, and families do not have to worry about the co-payments and other insurance restrictions.
“Maybe Medicaid kids are getting better treatment,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist and professor at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. “If it helps keep them in school, maybe it’s not so bad.”
In any case, as Congress works on health care legislation that could expand the nation’s Medicaid rolls by 15 million people — a 43 percent increase — the scope of the antipsychotics problem, and the expense, could grow in coming years.
Even though the drugs are typically cheaper than long-term therapy, they are the single biggest drug expenditure for Medicaid, costing the program $7.9 billion in 2006, the most recent year for which the data is available.
To continue reading this report, click here.
Study Says Poor Children Given More Antipsychotics
December 14, 2009
UPI
Poor U.S. children covered by Medicaid are prescribed powerful antipsychotic drugs more often than those under private healthcare, a study indicates.
Federally financed drug research performed by researchers from Rutgers and Columbia universities indicated the Medicaid children were prescribed such drugs at four times the rate of children whose parents have private insurance, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The newspaper said the study also found Medicaid children are more likely to get the anti-psychotics for less severe conditions than their wealthier counterparts.
The results came as a pediatric
advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met this week to examine the risks posed by the drugs, which have serious side effects such as causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes that can cause lifelong physical problems, the Times said.
Click here for the full report
Drug Ads Costing Us Money in Heathcare
Novemeber 25, 2009
Reuters
When consumer advertising began for the popular blood-thinner Plavix, Medicaid insurance programs for the poor and disabled spent millions more on the drug, even though the ads did not tempt doctors to write more prescriptions, researchers reported on Monday.
They said the study suggested that while ads might not directly increase the number of prescriptions, they still affect the cost of publicly funded healthcare because drugmakers appear to build the cost of the ads into their prices.
“Consequently, payers and policymakers should appropriately still be concerned about direct-to-consumer advertising for publicly funded reimbursement programs such as Medicare and Medicaid,” Michael Law of the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the University of British Columbia, and colleagues wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The team studied pharmacy data on Plavix or clopidogrel, the $9 billion-a-year seller made by Sanofi-Aventis (SASY.PA) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMY.N). They looked at 27 Medicaid programs from 1999 through 2005.
Plavix is used widely to treat heart attack patients. It works in a similar way to aspirin by stopping platelets — tiny blood cells vital for the normal clotting process — from clumping together.
From 1999 to 2000, there were no consumer-directed ads for Plavix. But from 2001 to 2005, U.S. advertising spending for Plavix topped $350 million, or an average of $70 million a year.
During the study period, doctors servicing Medicaid patients did not change the prescribing trends, but the amount of money spent by Medicaid on the drug rose dramatically.
Health Care Costs Hurting companies
November 24, 2009
NaturalNews
by David Gutierrez
Businesses in the United States are expected to spend 9 percent more on health care in 2010 than they did in 2009, according to an annual survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
According to previous surveys, the cost of health care increased by 9.9 percent between 2007 and 2008, then another 9.2 percent between 2008 and 2009.
The economic recession has contributed to the projected increase in health care costs in two ways. First, workers nervous about the possibility of being laid off have began using their health plans more heavily, out of fear of becoming uninsured. Unemployment has also affected health insurance costs by driving increasing numbers of people to public insurance programs such as Medicaid. This has built a significant blow to the profits of private insurers, who have responded by raising the rates that employers are expected to pay.
Employers, in turn, pass costs along to their employees. Forty-two percent of employers surveyed said that they planned to increase employees’ premiums, while 41 percent said that they planned to share increasing costs with their workers by changing their coverage plans. Twenty percent said that they planned to implement high-deductible health plans within the next two years.
The survey found that the number of people in high-deductible plans has been increasing, leading directly to lower use of medical services because people can simply no longer afford them.
More than two-thirds of employers in the survey said that they offered wellness or disease-management programs intended to reduce health care costs, although they did not find them very effective at cost reduction. Forty percent of employees said they were enrolled in wellness programs, while 15 percent were enrolled in disease-management programs
Not all factors are pushing costs up, however. Even if no health care reform plan is implemented, the patents on five blockbuster drugs are said to expire in 2010, while even more are set to enter the public domain in the following two years.
