Americans are spending more of their paychecks on medical health insurance because stagnant wages aren't keeping up with spiraling medical costs, according to a new study.
A report being issued Wednesday through the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan research foundation, discovered that premiums and deductibles grabbed 6.5 percent of workers' paychecks in 2006, growing to 8.4 percent this year and 10.1 percent in 2021.
And that doesn't include co-pays for doctors' visits and prescription medications.
“Employees are facing a bigger burden today in accordance with not too long ago,” said Commonwealth president David Blumenthal. “More money is appearing out of every paycheck” to pay for medical costs.
The report noted that 154 million Americans get health care insurance through their employers, when compared with 11.7 million through ObamaCare.
Under the health-care law, companies are required to provide coverage to full-time workers or face penalties.
They also must comply with new mandates – such as offering maintenance without imposing cost-sharing, barring annual and lifetime limits on benefits, and covering teenagers through age 26 on family plans.
The number of Americans covered by employer-based policies is one of the same as before ObamaCare kicked in.
The rate of annual increases in medical costs has slowed since ObamaCare was enacted this year – from 4.7 percent to three.8 percent – but is still climbing well in front of wages.
“The good news is the fact that premiums in employer plans are increasing more slowly on average, out of the box the total amount employees are being asked to contribute,” said Commonwealth Fund VP Sara Collins, lead author of the report.
But, she added, “Unfortunately, many employees with moderate incomes aren't feeling the benefits of these slowdowns, simply because they have not yet experienced the sustained development in their income to maintain health costs.”
In a troubling development, New Yorkers are becoming hit harder than residents elsewhere.
For individuals within the Empire State, premiums jumped from an average of 3.2 percent annually before ObamaCare to 5.4 % afterward. The price of family coverage increased from 5.1 % annually pre-ObamaCare to five.9 percent afterward.
The lobbying group representing New York's health insurers says ObamaCare has been doing a more satisfactory job of putting more uninsured people around the rolls compared to tackling costs.
“The Affordable Care Act in the first few years focused more about promoting access to coverage than controlling spending,” said Leslie Moran, spokeswoman for the Ny Health Plan Association.
“Now we must focus more on affordability,” she added. “That means bringing the actual costs under control – pharmacy costs and provider reimbursement costs. There isn't a cheque on this.”
She noted that New York has its own expensive requirements, such as requiring insurers to charge consumers the same rates no matter age.
