Betting On the Family’s Health

A local teacher complained to the school board about difficult choices and high costs of health insurance and betting that his family will remain health for seven years with a $10,000 deductible and an HSA.   The teacher is not alone in his wagers with health insurance and his family’s health.  All of us are facing similar dilemmas.  Many are facing much worse choices.  It’s likely a safe bet that most of the school board members are facing these same difficult choices.  Unfortunately, the problem is much bigger than a local school board can address.  The simple shifting of costs from individual to employer is no longer an adequate solution. 

 

It is clear that our health care system is seriously ill.  Here are the symptoms:

  • In 2009, we will spend about $2.5 trillion on health care – over $8,100 per person or 17.6% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) up from about $150 per year per person in 1960 or about 5% of our GDP.
  • Without significant change our spending on health care may double again to about $5 trillion in about 2020.  This will be nearly $15,000 per capita, accounting for 25% of GDP.
  • Since 1980 health care expenses have increase about twice as fast as inflation each year (average annual CPI increase was 3.96% while average annual increase in health care expenses was 7.79%) (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005)
  • Compared to other industrialized countries, we in the United States are spending from 50% to nearly three times more per capita for our healthcare. (California Health Foundation, 2008)
  • For all we spend, our health in the US is mediocre at best and getting relatively worse.  For example, compared to other countries in 2006 the US ranked:
    • 31st in life expectancy, down from 23rd in 1990;
    • 39th in infant mortality, down from 27th in 1990;
    • 43rd in adult mortality, down from 39th in 1990. (World Health Organization, 2009)
  • More than 60% of bankruptcies filed in the USA in 2007 were linked to medical expenses and three fourths of these people had health insurance. (Himmerstein, et al., 2009)
  • About 50 million people (one in six) in the US have NO health insurance coverage. (US Dept of Health & Human Services, 2005)

 

I encourage everyone to contact their representatives in Congress and the Senate to demand a complete examination and an immediate and robust treatment plan for our health care system.   It may already be too late for a modest treatment plan to cure the ills of our system.  It seems President Obama was correct in his comments to Congress that the needed treatment to cure our system may be too disruptive to be practically implementable.  However, without significant changes very soon, our health care system will arrive at the emergency room with symptoms so severe as to require admission to the intensive care ward.  If this happens, just as with individual people, the problem becomes significantly more expensive and much more difficult to fix.

 

There are multiple options beyond what we currently have available to us right now.  Many systems in other countries across the world get better results than our system at far less cost.  Let’s learn from them and adopt the best practices.  Call your Congressional representative and US Senator: demand that they work together to find and implement solutions.  Political bickering will only delay solutions and will likely send our health care system to the emergency room.  Let’s tackle the problem and address it now, before the illness is terminal.