$44,000 a year for health insurance?

[kurth]

$44,000 a year for health insurance?
By Julie Appleby, USA TODAY

Hundreds of entertainment industry workers in California and New Jersey who buy health insurance as a group are being hit with a rate increase that will raise some family-plan premiums to more than $44,000 a year. Insurer Cigna will raise rates for members of the group, which includes some in the Screen Actors Guild, an average of 82% in California and 65% in New Jersey next year. Under the new rates, the most expensive plan in California will cost a family $3,685 a month, $44,220 a year. Less-expensive HMO plans will cost families $24,624. In New Jersey, an HMO will cost $10,260 a year for a single person and $30,372 for a family.

The rates illustrate the tremendous range of price increases that can hit a business, association or individual, even when the average national premium increase is just over 6%. "Sadly, this happens to medium-sized businesses all the time, but they don't make the news," says Peter Lee, head of the Pacific Business Group on Health, a coalition of large employers.

Affected by the Cigna rate increase are about 1,100 members of 30 different guilds and associations who buy insurance through the Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust, a Clifton Park, N.Y.-based multiple-employer insurance broker. The trust offers the group insurance policies to association members, a mix of small businesses and sole proprietors. "It seems very clear that the aim of such a large increase is not to get more money out of us, but to eliminate us," says Steve Rosen in Los Angeles, whose wife, Victoria, gets coverage through the program...

David Rubin, who along with his wife, Alice, oversees the trust, says many members won't be able to afford the policies. "We are getting people who are dropping out, and we're getting people who are telling me they wish they could drop out but know they cannot get (other) insurance," Rubin says. Siri Feeney, a children's textbook artist in Ventura, Calif., says her $425-a-month rate is set to nearly double: "This is really hard for me. Some years, I only make that much a month."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/health/2006-12-05-cigna-rate-hikes_x.htm

[onecent]

1. I'm a retiree with the auto industry, and my insurance premium for

my husband and myself went from 144 a month to $460 per month.

[Lex]

2. It's deplorable. It's killing the country, hurting families.

And it's killing small businesses too.

Even large businesses. The auto industry said last month that the average car costs $1000 more due directly to their health insurance costs for their workers (that cost is passed on to consumers).

It's a real crisis.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. universal single-payer not-for-profit healthcare

NOW!

[Lex]

4. Someone here at DU posted a great link with loads of info yesterday:

http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php

[Viva_La_Revolution]

5. thanks! I wonder how the tax hike compares to the premiums and co-pays...

I bet it's less than half the $.

"A single-payer system would be financed by eliminating private insurers and recapturing their administrative waste. Modest new taxes would replace premiums and out-of-pocket payments currently paid by individuals and business. Costs would be controlled though negotiated fees, global budgeting and bulk purchasing."

[YOY]

7. It would cut out the profiteering that is for sure.

The parasites that are the health insurance industry. They export nothing and basically prey off of us for that which should be universal and easily accessible.

Middlemen and their dirty money...

[Kiouni]

6. entertainment workers?

these aren't strippers are they?

[Warren DeMontague]

8. SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE.

Now.

[Cobalt-60]

9. You could keep a doctor on retainer for that

[Vinca]

10. Something's got to give.

I'm heading into year 3 without insurance (knocking on wood)and it's only gotten more expensive than when I first couldn't afford it. $44,000 a year is proof the cost of insurance is driven by the greed of the insurance industry and they'll squeeze us all until they get every dime. There's a reason the United Healthcare CEO retired on a multi-billion dollar pile of gold.