Today we got our health insurance renewal rates. Because we have our own business, we purchase our own outrageously priced health insurance.
In order to keep the EXACT SAME COVERAGE for the next year (which already includes a hefty deductible and out-of-pocket charges, copays, partial prescription coverage, etc.) our monthly premium is going up 21%.
YES, I SAID TWENTY-ONE PERCENT.
THAT’S A 2 IN FRONT OF A 1.
21%!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How many businesses do you know that are increasing their profits by even 10% a year? How about a measly 5%?
This means our monthly insurance premium will be more than our mortgage payment, property taxes, home insurance, and phone/DSL bills combined.
I truly do not see how the American Dream is even possible for most people any longer. You can, of course, argue whether the American Dream is an appropriate goal for a Christian, but that’s not my point.
Do you think the American Dream is still a possibility for most people? Let’s define the American Dream as the ability to get an education of some kind (military, college or trade), work hard, and achieve what your parents achieved or better when it comes to financial return, advancement, and security.
I am really starting to believe that the American Dream is not a possibility for a growing segment of the population. How about you?
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That is astounding! I do think it is becoming increasingly difficult for the average person to achieve the American Dream. University educations are becoming ever more expensive, the price of decent housing is out of reach for far too many people and as you pointed out health care costs are KILLING us.
I can relate. My husband worked at home for a long time until it became evident that we would need to find health insurance somewhere else. I miss all of us at home in the nest together, but what can we do? We had looked into those Christian share plans, but they all either didn’t cover maternity or expected a mother to use a midwife. I would love to have homebirths, but I need C-sections, so that wasn’t an option for us.
My Grandma has told me more than once that amazingly, back before health insurance, most people could afford health care. She was very poor growing up, and yet she never felt that they didn’t get the medical care they needed. She claims that it is health insurance that caused the skyrocket in costs in the first place. From some of my other reading, I would say history confirms at least a correlation.
I think you are correct. My husband works at home and I work p-t. In our 18 years of marriage, we’ve only had health insurance 4 years and that was when both or myself was working f-t. It’s very discouraging.
Lately just buying groceries is discouraging!
Brandy said: “She claims that it is health insurance that caused the skyrocket in costs in the first place.”
I COMPLETELY agree, Brandy!!
I can’t believe they increased it by 21%, Sallie! That’s ridiculous! 🙁
Well, Insurance Companies have driven up costs, but other things, too – liability insurances. In VA, they say in 10 years that most OBGYNs will no longer deliver babies because the insurance will be too much. Also, the people who don’t have insurance do drive up the medical costs because when they don’t pay, someone has to. It’s a sad state of affairs.
Yes, I do think the American Dream is still possible, but maybe more difficult if you are self-employed (from the insurance aspect). We definitely have what my parents did PLUS more education, and on a military salary at that (enlisted). However, we aren’t into keeping up with all the latest technology or fashions and have no problems with buying some things secondhand. Whole organic foods, a modest house, and paying off all debt are our priorities at this point in our lives.
I believe we have the American dream – I’m a stay-at-home mom, we have great free medical coverage, nice housing, vacation once a year, etc. But for us it comes at a huge cost because we are a military family and DH deploys a lot and is gone a lot of the year (and usually has long hours even when he is home).
Civilian salaries look attractive to us sometimes but once you factor in medical, taxes, etc. I think we have it pretty good. I really think that outrageous medical costs are killing the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. Who can afford to take a chance on their own business these days?
Oh Sallie…don’t even get me started girlfriend!!!!!
I have a child who absolutely cannot ever let insurance lapse or she’ll never be covered. She qualifies for SSI because of her disability, but because we “make too much money” she is disqualified from getting those benefits. So, we have to pay private insurance and private ins. copays. She’s regularly in the hospital and going to therapy appointments. It has pretty much bankrupted us..not quite, but close. We sold our house to pay of medical debt, if that tells you anything.
I don’t want to take over the comment box so I won’t say much more, but I will say that I am very discouraged about the “American Dream” issue. (oh and before anyone says I want government health care, let me say NO–they screw up everything, so why would I want them to mess with my health care decisions????)
I think that for a very long time the middle class has carried this country. We’ve paid in taxes and covered the bases as the “working class” in the good old USA. We’ve lived paycheck to paycheck, but we’ve been able to stash a little savings away and buy a few nice luxuries here and there.
No more. The middle class is virtually extinct. Paycheck to paycheck is no longer enough. Yes, we make it just fine, but there is absolutely NO extra. We have cut out everything “fluffy” like cable and things like that. We save a little, but not enough.
When the middle class if finally wiped off the economic map, I wonder what will happen? I watched a news story recently that was talking about tax brackets and tax percentages. Currently, between state and federal, about 35% of my husband’s income is GONE. Warren Buffett pays only 18% of tax. Sure, he’s a bajillionaire and 18% is a lot of money, but he’s paying at a far less rate than the middle class is!
Oh, and by the way, “making too much money” for SSI was about $40K at the time, for a family of 5.
I could go on, but I’ll quit before my blood pressure rises much more.
Yes, this is such a complicated issue. There are so many facets just to the health costs issue – aging population, advances in keeping people alive longer who would have died, etc. It all costs money!
This was one of the points I was trying to make in my infamous coupon post. NOTHING IS FREE. If my rates are going up that much, it isn’t because we are necessarily costing the company that much more. Part of it is legal stuff and part of it is the extraordinary amounts spent to keep people alive when afflicted with a serious condition/disease. I’m not addressing the pros and cons of spending $1 million+ to treat someone’s cancer or heart problems or what have you. That’s another discussion. But SOMEONE is paying for that million dollar treatment and that someone is everyone who pays ridiculously priced premiums and still has to carry a large deductible, etc. How long can we as a society keep paying for that kind of treatment as our population ages and wants to stick around for longer and longer?
Lindsey, your comment about the lapses is the one thing that always makes us renew our policy. If, God forbid (literally), we dropped our coverage and one of us ended up with something serious, we would NEVER get health insurance again or it would be so cost prohibitive (thousands of dollars a month) that it would break us.
Yes, David and I are probably living the “American Dream” to some extent. We have college educations and the potential is there for us long term – maybe. The global economy and the entire financial mess in this country doesn’t bode well for too many people in the near future. But honestly I think our best chance for long-term success lies in inheriting money from our parents. If they are all able to hang on to what they have and pass it on to us, then we will probably do fine in our later years. But what about people who won’t inherit anything? Somehow I just don’t see the American Dream entailing scraping by every month and yet that is what is happening to more and more people.
Sallie, 21% is incredible! We just dropped our health insurance for the first time; even at the rates we were paying, which were pretty good for my husband’s industry, it was still crazy. We have been working on slowly paying down what was once a massive debt, and it’s not easy.
I spend now on food for the 5 of us the same amount I spent when our first child was born 5 years ago, and the cost of living keeps going up for everything. My husband asked me a few nights ago why we don’t eat near as much fresh fish as we used to. I told he’d have to give me a raise for us to do that! 🙂
The American Dream is becoming harder and harder to obtain, and not just in an ‘I want it all give it to me now’ kind of way. More difficult in the ‘it’s stressful always having to live paycheck to paycheck’ kind of way.
We got our “nice” salary adjustments [and they were nice] over Thanksgiving. They start January 1. Then I remembered we hadn’t heard what health care will cost next year! I have a son who needs counseling and meds prescribed only by a psychiatrist. I can’t wait to see what they’ve done to the mental health care. As of last year our Dental Plan was really only useful if you knew your kid was going into braces! Do the math–cost of premiums vs cost of your normal level of dental care–it may not be worth it.
Good luck!
That’s terrible. We are in a decision-making place right now regarding our health coverage. Currently, my husband is using his VA benefits for local outpatient care, and I have been driving 70 miles to the “local” Indian Health Service clinic for my outpatient care. Fortunately, we are both pretty healthy, but we know that we are in trouble if something major should happen, as neither one of us have a local hospital we can go to. I am eligible after the first of December for coverage, but to put my husband on is an additional $450 per month. And we don’t make that much. So then we will be in a position where I, who am 20 years younger, has better insurance than my husband. Sigh…it can be kind of scary sometimes, but it is what it is!
I believe that the American Dream may still be possible. However, it depends on what your version of the American Dream is. To my parents, born in the 1920’s – the American Dream was a home, food on the table, and a stay at home Mom. They did not own a car until I was 10. They took public transportation everywhere. We didn’t have a TV in our house (and then only 1) until I was 9. And, they didn’t have health insurance until the 1960’s. So, in evaluating what the American Dream is you can still have a version of it if you are willing to forgo the elements that our society labels as ‘needs’.
Just wanted to agree with Jo Anne…I think our idea of the American Dream as a whole has become distorted. Our family is considered “poor” by many people we know because we don’t choose to spend money on cable/satellite TV, cell phones, or new cars. Not that those things are wrong, but for us, we’d have to give up any chance of saving money and possibly my staying home to have them.
I don’t know what the definition of the American Dream would be, but that increase is just unbelievable! Makes me think even more that something needs to be done to help people with healthcare.
This article from Brandeis University is a real eye-opener and backs up what you have said. Insurance is a big business. The insurance companies are out to make a profit. I have no idea what the solution is, unfortunately.
http://iasp.brandeis.edu/pdfs/byathread_web.pdf
I agree. The harshest reality of our nation’s economy is the unlimited health-care banquet for the wealthy few and the empty health-care plate for the rest. To me, the story behind health care inequity is the ever-widening gap between our rich and our poor:
“One way to understand the growing gap is to compare earnings increases over time by the vast majority of taxpayers – say, everyone in the lower 90 percent – with those at the top, say, in the uppermost 0.01 percent (now about 14,000 households, each with $5.5 million or more in income last year).
“From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every additional dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.
… “In this income data I see a snapshot of a very innovative society,” said Tim Kane, an economist at the Heritage Foundation. “Lower taxes and lower marginal tax rates are leading to more growth. There’s an explosion of wealth. …” But some of the wealthiest Americans … [warn] that such a concentration of wealth can turn a meritocracy into an aristocracy and ultimately stifle economic growth by putting too much of the nation’s capital in the hands of inheritors rather than strivers and innovators. … Alan Greenspan warned in Congressional testimony: “For the democratic society, that is not a very desirable thing to allow it to happen.” …
“Economic mobility – moving from one income group to another over a lifetime – has actually stopped rising in the United States, researchers say. Some recent studies suggest it has even declined over the last generation. (“The Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind”, David Kay Johnston NYTimes 6/5/05)
In terms of a solution, I believe it is a return to a free market system of health care. With the enormous subsidization of health care by the gov’t, no one is shopping around. An insured person with a generous coverage will go to the doctor for any little thing. They don’t keep costs in mind the way I do (we have no insurance). I compare costs of visits, meds, etc. And I only go in if I really need to!
On the other end of the spectrum, those of us who are uninsured need to pay for our care instead of having the government fairy wave its wand. If I am, God please forbid, in an accident, and rack up a $15,000 hospital bill, I should pay it. I should set up a payment plan and pay it month by month until it’s paid. That contract should be enforced like any other debt.
Suze – Welcome and thank you for that link. It was very interesting, especially their definition of the American Dream which I think I would pretty much agree with. I’ve only had time to skim it, but one of the things that caught my eye was the fact that they defined middle class as between $40,000 and $120,000 a year for a family of four. Ummm… That’s quite a spread. I suppose it covers lower middle class, middle class and upper middle class, but still. We’re talking the difference between someone grossing $3,333 and $10,000 a month. Quite a bit of difference there in terms of what you can afford no matter where you live in the US.
deidre – Thank you, too, for the interesting statistics!
I wonder how much of our perspective is impacted by our age. David is the very tail end of the baby boomers (he fits the definition by a few months) and I’m a Gen Xer although I think we’re both impacted by both in our thinking and attitudes. Frankly, I’m hoping that by the time we are older the country will have found some solution to the huge mess ahead of us, primarily caused by the baby boomers. Watching the baby boomers move into retirement and old age should be quite interesting on several levels as well as how the rest of the upcoming generations respond to them as they age.
And those are my random thoughts this evening! 😀
Marie – I agree that the not shopping around is a big factor. I also think if people got back part of their premium if they didn’t use it, you would see a totally different mindset about running to the doctor for everything.
And don’t even get me started on the illegals who get free medical care. My blood starts to boil every time it even flits through my mind.
It isn’t so much the $15,000 bill I fear (although I do). It’s the $750,000 cancer treatments that I wouldn’t be able to pay for Caroline if she got sick. How do you watch your child or spouse die because you can’t afford the treatments? (I mean that as a rhetorical question, not a question aimed at you or anyone else who doesn’t have health insurance.)
And where does faith come in to play?
Just to clarify… I don’t even pretend to have all the answers. Sometimes I just raise the questions. 🙂
Did anyone think that maybe it’s time for the US to get universal health coverage? i.e. join the rest of the developed western world where you wouldn’t have to be stressing on these things. Call your politician today! I am serious!
Karen,
I have considered universal health care and rejected it. People come from Canada in increasing numbers for any number of surgeries and procedures they can’t get there. Pets get MRIs within a day in Canada; citizens wait about six months. Veterinarians are being begged to give MRIs where possible to hurting and sick Canadians.
Some recent headlines:
“UK Dentist Refuse Those With Bad Teeth
DENTISTS on the National Health Service are turning away people with bad teeth because they say they are only paid enough to treat patients with a good dental health record.”
“The East Anglian Daily Times in Suffolk reports:
A PENSIONER who borrowed more than £7,000 to pay for a hip operation abroad after being told she was too overweight to be treated on the NHS is trying to claim the money back from health chiefs. Former Bartlet Hospital canteen worker Moira Ryan, 69, from Felixstowe, flew to Malta with her son for the successful hip replacement….”
““I’m a born-bred Canadian, as well as my daughter and son, and I’m ashamed,” Jill Irvine told FOX News. Irvine’s daughter, Carri Ash, is one of at least 40 mothers or their babies who’ve been airlifted from British Columbia to the U.S. this year because Canadian hospitals didn’t have room for the preemies in their neonatal units.”
““10-15-07 Sky News
Posted on 10/15/2007 7:06:37 AM PDT by RKV
Falling numbers of NHS dentists are forcing many patients to go without treatment or even try pulling out their own teeth, a study has revealed.
Almost a fifth (19%) of those questioned said they had missed out on dental work because of the cost. The research found 6% had even resorted to treating themselves because they could not find a dentist. The 5,000-plus patients who were interviewed also spoke of taking out their own teeth or fixing broken crowns with glue. One person in Lancashire said he had carried out 14 separate extractions with a pair of pliers.”
It is very easy to find these reports in this day and age. Wherever socialized medicine is tried, absolute agony results.
Why is veterinary care so readily available when people care is not? Well, it’s not subsidized. It’s not considered a “right.” The free market is in play. That seems to me to be what works best. I think current events bear this out.
This has been such an interesting discussion. Each point of view has been represented, showing how our nation at large keeps going around in a circle on this issue. Premiums too high…. but we don’t want to lose our care… but we don’t want subsidized care or universal care… so we want a better-functioning private market for health care … but not if our premiums rise. As our nation ages, and obesity rises, the need for extreme and costly emergency health care will rise. As the gap between rich and poor widens, and middle-class earnings continue to shrink in comparison to their parent’s earnings, patients will rely more heavily on stop-gap measures like county emergency rooms and unlicensed providers, and lean more and more heavily on their credit cards to survive.
I don’t see how the anecdotes from Canadians are anything as bad as what we have in this country. Neonatal units are overcrowded so infants are flown to the US? I doubt that when an urban county hospital closes its doors in Los Angeles, there’s anyone left to airlift an preemie anywhere. A guy in England is pulling his own teeth? A huge percentage of Americans never see a dentist. I’m sure it’s more than the 19% quoted above. And yes, they’re suffering. People leave Canada to have surgeries in America? Americans head to Mexico in huge numbers for chemotherapy and cancer treatments.
Anyway, a very very interesting discussion here.
I absolutely agree with deidre. I remember a few years ago waiting in line for my dental appointment and overhearing an elderly man wanting to get a tooth pulled – he was in pain and it was infected. The fee was going to be $100, and he said the appointment had to wait until the first of the month because he didn’t get his social security check until then. But here’s the thing that got me – it was only the 5th of the current month. Five days after getting his social security he already didn’t have enough money to pay for a tooth pulling. He wasn’t a bum or a drunk (as far as I could tell) he was just an elderly man living on a very tight fixed income. I’m sure there are thousands more who couldn’t have afforded the $100 no matter how long they waited.
I think our lack of national health coverage makes our businesses less competitive in the global market. Big businesses that provide health insurance are competing with European and Asian companies that don’t have to factor that cost into their operation. And small businesses are just out of luck, because they simply can’t afford to cover their employees at all.
And yes, people in the US are going to Mexico and India for treatment. Indian doctors are often US trained, highly skilled, and English speaking. An when you need a $20K or $50K cancer treatment the price of a plane ticket is a real bargain.
Marie, you are entitled to your opinion. You will always be able to find headlines to support your position, as I can to support mine. As a 38 year old Canadian I can honestly say that I have never spent a second of my life worrying about access to health care or having to pay for it. And I thank God for that!! (And Tommy Douglas, a former minister turned politician who pioneered the cause of medicare in this country.) Anyway, I only made my comment because after reading all the previous comments I really sympathized with all the Americans who are decent, hard-working people and who are being taken to the cleaners by the insurance companies. Health care in the US is big business, and, like Walmart, is concerned only with profit. Don’t think for a second that the health of your family is a concern. Someone out there is padding their wallet and bank account while other people suffer needlessly. As a Christian, this bothers me. This is the 21st century. We’ve abolished slavery. We’ve sent men to the moon. But America can’t guarantee universal access to health care?!!! That is no better than someone living 200 years ago. Okay, I exaggerate. Please understand that I am only writing from an empathetic position.