Health care insurance: more expensive, less coverage

[The Straight Story]

Health care insurance: more expensive, less coverage

WASHINGTON — A growing number of workers in 2009 will pay more for health benefits — and in some cases receive less coverage — as their employers grapple with the financial fallout of rising medical expenses and diminished revenue and profits, recent surveys of human resource officials show.

The Corporate Executive Board found in its survey that a quarter of officials from 350 large corporations said they had increased deductibles an average of 9 percent in 2008. But 30 percent of the employers said they expected to raise deductibles an average of 14 percent in 2009. Mercer, a global benefits consulting firm, surveyed nearly 2,000 large corporations in a representative poll and found that 44 percent planned to increase the employee-paid portion of premiums in 2009, compared with 40 percent in 2008.

The economic slowdown, according to analysts, is making it more difficult for many employers to subsidize health care costs at previous levels. On average, experts say, benefit packages contain the biggest increases for workers since the recession of 2001. Workers' health costs are rising much faster than wages.

The cost-shifting is one more piece of bad news battering consumers, analysts said, reducing their spending power and giving them one more reason to hold on to their money.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_11560445

[Kalyke]

1. So when is the Corporate Executive Board going to lobby for

single-payer national insurance, then?

[L0oniX]

2. We need to "all" take a day off and demand single payer health care...

and protest until we get it. If we could all do this at the same time I am sure we would get what we want and need. If we and our employers did not have to pay for health care insurance, think about how much more money we would have. Hows that for an economic stimulus package?

The insurance that people have for the most part is nothing but a discount plan and they don't find out until it is too late. WTH can afford $300 a month and a $5000 yearly deductable per person?

[BonnieJW]

3. Think about how much more money our employers would

have.