Recent Changes

Reference
Anthony, M. (2001). Rising healthcare costs puts small business owners under pressure. Retrieved July 15, 2009 from http://www.leadtrac.com/employer_healthcare_costs_jump_in_2001.htm
Byrnes, M (2004). Major candidates dodge healthcare solution. Revolution – The journal for RNs and patient advocacy, 5(4), 27-28. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from CINAHL plus full text database
CNN (2009). Medical bills prompt more than 60 percent of U.S. bankruptcies. Retrieved June 6, 2009 from http://www.cnn.com
Healthcare Financial Management Association (2008). Employers Push Employee Cost Sharing to New Levels. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from
http://hfma.org/publications/pfb_newsletter/archives/Employers+Push+Employee+Cost+Sharing+to+New+Levels.htm
Kavilanz, P.B. (2009). Workers pay more for healthcare – survey. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from http://money.cnn.com
National Coalition on Health Care (2009). Retrieved July 16, 2009 from http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml
The Henry Kaiser Family Foundation, (2009). Health covereage & uninsured. Retrieved July 10, 2009 from http://www.statehealthfacts.org

Policy Proposal
Policy Issue
Employers pass the increasing healthcare costs on to their employees by increasing employees’ co-pays, while the employer does not absorb any of the increasing costs.
Opposing Current Policy
Current Florida Statute title XXXVII, chapter 627, on insurance rates and contracts, guarantees the availability of health insurance coverage to eligible individuals, but fails to establish percentage rate limits on how much the insured person is to pay for on premiums or deductibles.
The need for change
The high costs of health insurance in the United States is a serious problem that appears to only be getting worse. With insurance rates at an all time high, the employees are “stuck” paying the tab. According to Mike Anthony (2001), the average cost of a single person health insurance policy for an employee was $2,650, while the employee paid up to $7,053 annually for family coverage. Over the past 8 years the cost of insurance has continued to escalate. There is currently no policy that prevents employers to pass on the rising healthcare costs to the employees. Many employers have adopted a Consumer Directed Health Plan (CHSA), which offers lower premiums but higher deductibles. This is another way for the employer to pass the expense on to the employee. It is now estimated that, 59% of U.S. businesses expect to increase employees deductibles, co-payments and out of pocket expenses (HFMA, 2008).
What to do
Federal and state legislators need to propose a new bill that sets more realistic expectations about employees share in costs of insurance.
Facts
The percentage of people (workers and dependents) with employment-based health insurance has dropped form 70% in 1987 to 62% in 2007. This is the lowest level of employment-based insurance coverage in more than a decade (NCHC, 2009)
Even if employees are offered coverage on the job they cannot always afford their portion of the premium. Employee spending for health insurance coverage (employee’s share of family coverage) has increased to 20% between 2000-2006 (NCHC, 2009)
1.5 million Americans are expected to file bankruptcy this year due to medical bills (CNN, 2009)
75% of those who filed medically related bankruptcy had health insurance coverage (CNN, 2009)
In Florida, 8,500,588 people carry health insurance coverage through their employers (Kaiser, 2009)
In Florida, employers share of benefits for an individual is 78%, while the national average is 81% (Kaiser, 2009)
In some cases, premiums exceed medical costs as health plans try to build a cushion for anticipated higher future medical costs (Anthony, 2001)
The average deductible for single coverage is $2,010 and for CHSA plan is $1,522 (Kavilanz, 2009)
43.6 million people in the U.S. were uninsured for 2002 (Byrnes, 2004)
81.8 million people lacked coverage for all or part of 2002 and 2003 (Byrnes, 2004)

updates
I have also been looking for more articles. I'll post them when I find some.

updates
I have been looking at a few things but nothing too good so far. I have the one article from CNN. I am off friday and I will be looking on the library database for journals covering the topic. I will start a facts sheet with the article I have just to get things rolling. Talk to you guys soon.

Katie

updates
I have still been researching the data. Has anyone else found anything good? Check back in on Sunday evening.

cindy

updates
Hey guys, I am still looking for data and it is kind of hard to find. Is anyone else having difficulty? I still am not sure how to navigate this site. I feel like I am not doing something right or that I am missing things. Pleases let me know. I will check back in on saturday.


cindy

research
sounds good to me, thanks