It was a little serendipitous that the day this assignment topic became available coincided with the release of my company’s new employee medical plan for 2012 and the lead article in the online site for USAToday headlining with; “Employee health insurance cost rising again”. Can you guess the issue to be discussed in this blog?
Based on the numbers I can derive, my family (of 4) will be hit with about an 8% increase in the cost to maintain our existing medical benefits. To be fair, I know our Human Resource department works hard to keep costs under control and some years benefit costs have held steady. Not so for next year it seems. This appears to be in line with the findings referenced in the article which quoted a number of human resource consultancy reports:
“Towers Watson projects that 66% of companies will increase employees' share of premiums for single-only coverage in 2012, and 73% will increase the share of premiums for dependent coverage. Another survey by the National Business Group on Health found that 53% of employers plan to increase employees' share of premiums, while 39% plan to increase in-network deductibles.”[1]
By the way, for anyone interested I have come across a good site where you can monitor health insurance rate hikes at: http://companyprofiles.healthcare.gov/
The ever increasing cost increases and the increasing shift of that cost burden onto families is a major concern to me (and everyone else I am sure) as it is hard to know where the ceiling is. It appears there is simply no end in sight. The Kaiser Family foundation has released estimates that show by 2021, average family premiums are set to double to more than $32,000. For 2011 the premium is $15,073, up 9% from 2010.[2] These numbers are not exactly very encouraging.
So with the trend showing no significant slow down, it does beg the question of who is responsible for these ever increasing costs? One answer put forward is - doctors. The blog site (pnhp.org) cites a recent study conducted by Columbia University researchers that indicated US physicians are making five times the median income and concluded that higher fees paid to US
- Loans accumulated through college and medical school can reach $300,527.
U.S. - The average physician works 59.6 hours each week.
- Doctors devote about 30% of their gross profit toward office overhead.
- The required licenses and certifications cost doctors about $5,000 annually to maintain.
- Medical malpractice insurance can run tens of thousands of dollars each year.[4]
Taken all into account (after tax), does the high income look so high after all?
The conclusion was that reducing physicians’ take-home pay (accounting for just 10% of national health care costs) will do little to drive down America's health bill and may actually go some way to discourage people entering the profession which would further compound access to good health care in the first place. What also was acknowledged but not more fully explored was the fact that Americans place a premium on accessing superior medical care. Our expectations of the type health care system we want cannot be sustained with the financial resources we have. In my opinion, we have yet to make this reckoning with ourselves. This may be the issue that needs to be addressed before doctors’ earnings are reduced….
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