27 September 2006

What is the opposite of socialised medicine?

Capitalised medicine? Marketised medicine? Free market (but not free) medicine? Just plain bad medicine?

The LA Times reports on the continued above inflation increases in the costs of health insurance in America as well as the increase of the number of uninsured. According to the article the number of uninsured workers has increased by around five million over the past six years.

As premiums increase fewer workers take up insurance even when it is available, fewer companies offer insurance and the cost to the employee increases. Just the premiums for family cover now average around 11,400 USD annually and on average employers cover 73% of the cost. Of course this would be without deductibles or co-payments. Assuming a median income of around 65,000 USD this would leave an employee with access to employer sponsored coverage still spending nearly 5% of pre-tax income on premiums alone. If a household doesn’t have access to an employee plan then they are in trouble with 17.5% of pre-tax going to insurance alone for a family with median income.
About the only encouragement I take from the article is the comment from Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA: "We are moving closer and closer to a tipping point. Any sense that this is just a problem of the poor is disappearing. This is increasingly affecting working families.

I know that on the surface that doesn't sound very encouraging. But the middle class, unlike the poor, do have political clout. As the problem begins to touch middle class lives they may begin to realise that socialism may not be a dirty word. Then something may change. In the interim the gap widens between haves and have nots.

I hope something changes and quickly.

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