Conclusion to Connecticut Health Insurance Cost Findings

In Connecticut, health insurance premiums are rising considerably faster than workers' earnings. As a result, health care costs are consuming ever-larger portions of family budgets and causing substantial hardships. If this trend continues, more and more families will inevitably join the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured, and Connecticuters will face diminishing economic and health security. This crisis will only worsen until there is leadership in Washington, D.C. and in the states that takes decisive and meaningful action to make health care truly affordable and accessible to all.

End Notes

• 1 - Most recently, Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, Employer Health Benefits: 2007 Survey (Washington: Kaiser Family Foundation, September 2007).
• 2 - Carmen DeNavas-Walt, Bernadette D. Proctor, and Jessica C. Smith, Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2007 (Washington: U.S. Census Bureau, August 2008).
• 3 - Data from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, 2006-2007.
• 4 - Cathy Schoen, Sarah R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, and Michelle M. Doty, "How Many Are Underinsured? Trends among U.S. Adults, 2003 and 2007," Health Affairs 27, no. 4 (June 10, 2008): W298-W309; Cathy Schoen, Michelle M. Doty, Sara R. Collins, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, "Insured but Not Protected: How Many Adults Are Underinsured?" Health Affairs Web Exclusive (June 14, 2005): W5-289-W5-302.
• 5 - David Cutler, "Employee Costs and the Decline in Health Insurance Coverage," Frontiers in Health Policy Research 6, no. 3 (2003).
• 6 - Christine Eibner, The Economic Burden of Providing Health Insurance: How Much Worse Off Are Small Firms? (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, April 2008); Jon Gabel, Gary Claxton, Isadora Gil, Jeremy Pickreign, Heidi Whitmore, Benjamin Finder, Samantha Hawkins, and Diane Rowland, "Health Benefits in 2005: Premium Increases Slow Down, Coverage Continues to Erode," Health Affairs 24 (September/October 2005): 1,273-1,280.
• 7 - Cathy Schoen, Sarah R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, and Michelle M. Doty, op cit.; Cathy Schoen, Michelle M. Doty, Sara R. Collins, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, op. cit.
• 8 - James C. Robinson, "Reinvention of Health Insurance in the Consumer Era," JAMA 291, no. 15 (April 21, 2004): 1,880-1,886.
• 9 - Jon Gabel, Gary Claxton, Isadora Gil, Jeremy Pickreign, Heidi Whitmore, Benjamin Finder, Samantha Hawkins, and Diane Rowland, op. cit.
• 10 - Kaiser Family Foundation, Trends and Indicators in the Changing Health Care Marketplace, Section 4: Trends in Health Insurance Benefits (Washington: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005).
• 11 - Laura Tollen and Robert M. Crane, A Temporary Fix? Implications of the Move Away from Comprehensive Health Benefits (Washington: Employee Benefit Research Institute, April 2002).
• 12 - Martin Chalkley and Ray Robinson, Theory and Evidence on Cost Sharing in Health Care: An Economic Perspective (London: Office of Health Economics, 1997); and Joseph P. Newhouse, Free for All?: Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance Experiment (Boston: Harvard University Press, 1996 reprint).
• 13 - Kim Bailey and Beth Wikler, Too Great a Burden: America's Families at Risk (Washington: Families USA, December 2007).
• 14 - Sarah R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, Karen Davis, Michelle M. Doty, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, Squeezed: Why Rising Exposure to Health Care Costs Threatens the Health and Financial Well-Being of American Families (Washington: The Commonwealth Fund, September 2006).
• 15 - See Michelle M. Doty, Jennifer N. Edwards, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, Seeing Red: Americans Driven into Debt by Medical Bills (Washington: The Commonwealth Fund, August 2005).
• 16 - Cathy Schoen, Sarah R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, and Michelle M. Doty, op. cit.
• 17 - Ibid.
• 18 - David U. Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne, and Steffie Woolhander, "Illness and Injury As Contributors to Bankruptcy," Health Affairs Web Exclusive (February 2, 2005): W5-63-W5-73. See also Sarah R. Collins, Jennifer L. Kriss, Karen Davis, Michelle M. Doty, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, op. cit.; Sarah R. Collins and Alice Ho, From Coast to Coast: The Affordability Crisis in U.S. Health Care (Washington: The Commonwealth Fund, March 2004); and Sara R. Collins, Michelle M. Doty, Karen Davis, Cathy Schoen, Alyssa L. Holmgren, and Alice Ho, op. cit.
• 19 - David U. Himmelstein, Elizabeth Warren, Deborah Thorne, and Steffie Woolhander, op. cit.
• 20 - Michelle M. Doty, Jennifer N. Edwards, and Alyssa L. Holmgren, op. cit.