Chattanooga Times Free
Press (TN) November 21, 2019
Nov.
21--More middle-class worker income is going toward health care as rising
insurance costs outpace wage growth in every state, according to a new
Commonwealth Fund report.
The
report examined trends in United States employer coverage over the past decade
and found that average employee premium contributions and deductibles across
single and family policies increased from $4,160 in 2008 to $7,388 last year.
That means a median-income American household now spends about 11.5% of its
earnings on health insurance costs, compared to 7.8% in 2008.
"The
majority of people under age 65 in the U.S., 164 million, get their health
insurance through an employer, and that insurance is less and less affordable
for many of them," Dr. David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth
Fund, said in a news release. "Ensuring that everyone can afford health
insurance and health care will require policy fixes and system-wide efforts to
get to the heart of the health care cost problem -- the exorbitant prices we
often pay for health care in the United States."
Households
in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia were more likely to spend larger portions of
their incomes on insurance costs and deductibles, since median incomes in the
South are on average lower than in other parts of the country, the report's
authors said.
In
Tennessee -- where the median household income in 2018 was $58,962 --
out-of-pocket health costs took 13.5% of middle-income workers' earnings, the
report found. The average employee premium contributions and deductibles in
Tennessee increased from $4,090 to $7,966 over 10 years. Georgia and Alabama
saw similar trends, with potential out-of-pocket health costs accounting for
13.6% and 12.4%, respectively, of a median household's income.
Sara
Collins, lead author of the study, said the trend is concerning "because it
may put both coverage and health care out of reach for millions of
people."
Authors
of the report noted that lower-income people with employer coverage spend an
even larger share of their income on health insurance and related costs.
Data
for the report came from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey-Insurance
Component, which surveyed more than 40,000 private-sector employers in 2018 on
their health insurance plans.
Contact
Elizabeth Fite at efite@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6673.
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the Chattanooga Times/Free Press (Chattanooga, Tenn.)
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