Heath Insurance Book, Chapter 1, Section 4
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Y ou’ve heard it in the news – health insurance costs are skyrocketing. However, health insurance costs are not the same in each part of the country, in each state, or even in each ZIP code. The most recent data shows that the sharp increases are gone, with a slower growth rate now. The increases also differ among insurers, and among types of plans offered by the insurer. Your age, always going up, is another factor in the increasing costs, one that is not reflected in any survey on health insurance inflation. The chances of needing medical care drop drastically after the first few years of life, creep up once we near middle age, and finally shoot up in the last years of life. |
“Most media talks about group sponsored health insurance, which can be quite expensive.”
-Bob Hurley, Senior Vice President of Carrier Relations, eHealthInsurance.com |
To get an idea of how much the health insurance premiums go up each year, let’s look at some statistics from organizations that study these markets. The Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Health Research and Educational Trust, both independent non-profit groups with a mission to provide healthcare information, publish an annual survey entitled “Employer Health Benefits.” This is an annual survey of the trends of purchasing group plans by employers. This is not exactly the same as an individual buying insurance, but it gives some idea about the upward nature of rates for both types of insurance.
This study has shown double digit increases in the first few years of the new century, as high as 13.9% in 2003. However, the trend is currently downward, with a 7.7% increase in 2006. But this downward trend is still more than twice the overall inflation rate, and the overall increase since 2000 for family coverage has been 87%.
| With this in mind, it is important to monitor your health insurance coverage and consider new options as they become available to you. Once you’ve gone through the process presented in this book, you can easily update your options with new insurers and new plans on an annual basis – and switch if something makes better sense for you. |
“If we could equalize the tax treatment for everyone, I believe a sizable number would buy their own health insurance coverage, from outside, free from the chain to their employer. We give ourselves the portability to move about, changing employers and states. We want independence. People say that they would rather have their employers load up their paycheck and they’ll go find the best health insurance”
-Bob Hurley, Senior Vice President of Carrier Relations, eHealthInsurance.com |
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