Affordability, And How Rising Health Care Costs Hurts Nearly Everyone
Hello, and welcome to this week's issue of the Health Insurance News Roundup. The theme this week in most of the articles I discovered involved the high and rising costs of health care, and the effects that such high costs are having on businesses and consumers. This week we will discuss some of the varying opinions on this topic as presented by several authors.
In an article entitled, "Small cos. face huge insurance costs" in the Boston Herald, author Jennifer Heldt Powell discusses how small businesses are having a trouble providing their employees with health care due to the expense. She cites the example of a small local shop that has fewer employees than the federally-mandated law that would require the shop's owner to provide health insurance. However, with a growing business and the expectation of hiring more employees, the shop's owner is concerned with being able to provide insurance for his employees in the future. Small businesses are seen as one of the backbones of our economy, and this kind of situation is one of the lynchpins driving health care reform.
The New York Times, in an article entitled, "Even the Insured Feel Strain of Health Costs," authors Reed Abelson and Milt Freudenheim look into the issues of rising health care costs even for those who are insured. The article cites several small business owners from across the country stating how difficult it has become to provide their employees with affordable health insurance coverage in such a soft economy as ours, and how the cost has gone up nearly exponentially in the past several years. According to the article, even those with coverage find it hard to cope with bills once they have health problems due to rising co-payments, premiums, drug costs, and so on. Sadly, the article offered few solutions for this crisis that is "burying small business" and so on...maybe because right now there aren't any clear-cut solutions.
An article entitled, "Health cost woes prompt bankruptcies" on the Cincinnati Enquirer talks about how the rising cost of health insurance and health care is causing consumers to make hard choices, such as choosing between medicine or paying one's mortgage. Like the other articles, this article seems to give credence that health insurance is best used for people who aren't sick, and becomes too expensive when a person does get sick and actually needs it. In this article, as the title suggests, it discusses how many are turning to bankruptcy to avoid paying huge medical costs which can costs in the tens of hundreds of thousands of dollars. As in other articles of this type, it also suggests that many are skipping regular and preventative care in order to save money, which can lead to emergencies down the line.
The Daily Courier has an article entitled, "Having health insurance does not guarantee access," in which author T.M. Shultz discusses the "nightmare" that is Medicare and why less and less doctors are accepting it. More and more doctors are opting out of accepting Medicare due to rate cuts that doctors would receive per patient. This means that even as more patients will be joining Medicare due to baby boomers reaching 65 or older, less and less doctors will be covering them. According to the article, the "ripple effect" in the cutting of Medicare fees to doctors not only hurt patients, but doctors as well due to them not being able to take as many patients as they would like.
So as you can see, there's a crisis right now in which not only are people having a hard time affording health care in the first place, but even those with health insurance are having trouble affording their bills. Right now each presidential candidate has an idea as to what to do to "fix" the health care system that many call "broken" in this country. However, it seems as if we have to wait for major reforms to take place before the problems presented in articles such as these become more manageable, let alone get solved.
That concludes this week's Health Insurance News Roundup. I hope you've found it entertaining, insightful and useful. Until next week, stay happy and healthy.