Sun editorial:

Rising medical expenses

Increasing numbers of working-age Americans are finding health care unaffordable

Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 | 2:06 a.m.

While the nation focuses on high gasoline prices and the housing foreclosure crisis, it would be unwise to forget that we are also saddled with health care costs that have spiraled out of control.

A survey released Wednesday by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation in New York City that focuses on health care research, showed that higher percentages of working-age adults were unable to afford medical care in 2007 than in previous years. The findings by the foundation, whose board members include the president of the Johns Hopkins University, show that this country is going in the wrong direction on the issue of affordable care.

One troubling statistic is that 41 percent of adults aged 19 to 64 had problems paying medical bills or accrued medical debt in 2007, up from 34 percent in 2005. The survey also found that in 2007 one-third of adults spent at least 10 percent of their income on health insurance and health care, up from 21 percent who did so in 2001.

Roughly 28 percent of adults, an estimated 50 million people, went without health insurance for at least a portion of 2007. That was also an increase from 2001, when the uninsured were 24 percent of adults, an estimated 38 million individuals.

As we approach the November general election, we encourage the presidential and congressional candidates to spend as much time as possible discussing their solutions to rising health care costs. Once they take office, it is imperative that this issue be placed high on their 2009 agenda.

There is a real danger that rising medical expenses, if left unchecked, will make our troubled economy even worse. We will be left with more Americans needlessly suffering from poor health. In extreme cases, many will even lose their homes because of financial duress and wind up on the streets. As Americans we should not stand idly by and allow this to happen.

Discussion: 3 comments so far…

By Future2012

8/22/08 at 8:43 a.m.

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Rising medical expenses already are make our troubled economy even worse.

Unions are one of the biggest driver of health care cost.

Labor Unions have done very little to communicate what their purpose is in today’s society. We know that membership is on decline because most of the old line employers that they have locked up are going bankrupted or are losing market share. Those old employers have generally been ones that produce tangible products which no longer can be priced to compete in the market place (steel, autos, airlines, etc.) without concession in wages and benefit. The UAW had 1.7 million member in 1979 and 465 thousand in 2007. Unions now only represent 7.5% of the private sector employees.

The new employers that Labor Unions are infiltrating are services that are not as subject to being lost to competition such as Teachers, Nurses, State and City employees, Police and Fire, Hospitality, and local commercial construction. Education and Healthcare costs are increasing at twice to three times the national inflation rate. The average hourly wage was $39.50/hour for public jobs and $26.09/hour for private jobs in 2007.
By KDR81

8/22/08 at 9:33 a.m.

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The problem is having a third party payer system. As a consumer, I don't pay, someone else does, so I won't care what the doctor charges.

Its like taking someone elses credit card and then handing it over to a doctor and saying "I'll take whatever"

OF COURSE PRICES ARE GOING TO GO UP FAST!

If we want to stop medical expenses from growing rapidly the government needs to encourage the growth of Health Savings Accounts, not health-insurance (or universal coverage).
By neiman1

8/22/08 at 9:33 a.m.

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Health Care is expensive, but it also does a lot. Years ago people died, today we keep them living and with a real life for decades longer. That costs money. New procedures, new medicines, new technology all cost money.

The problem is accessibility. Having the government pay for it doesn't make it cost less. Everything the government touches costs more.

Health Care can never be EQUAL for all any more than housing, vacations, or life. We can provide a basic health care for everyone, but not Cadillac, or maybe the Porche care everyone wants.

Some people will always have enough money to pay for a private room and a nurse at home, but does that mean a government hospital for the poor could not have wards and patients having to come in for visits? As politicians raise the minimum care provided in hopes of votes it elevates the costs and doesn't pay for them, they just pass it to us in higher costs for those who pay.

They have run out of cost shifting left so now they want to run it all, and then it will be as efficient as our schools, our border security, and everything else they do so well. Rationing as the money isn't budgeted will be next. Not obvious, just longer waits, cheaper alternatives instead of what we want and the political agenda will move on, without the sick, because they wont make it.

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