Current Healthcare System: Escalating Healthcare Costs

Estimates suggest that approximately 47 million people in the United States have no health insurance. Sarah Murray, a writer for the Financial Times, quoting Ralph Neas, chief executive of the National Coalition on Health Care, reports that over half of the “bankruptcies and foreclosures are because Americans can’t pay their medical bills” ("US health system: Radical change is a slim hope," 2009, para. 3).

Murray reports that family healthcare insurance premiums have increased 131 percent over the past ten years. Private sector companies that provide health insurance benefits for their employees have also been influenced by the increased costs of medical care (particularly due to the recession). Some companies have been forced to raise deductible and co-payment rates in their benefit plans so that escalating costs do not decrease company profits. Others have opted to cut medical benefits entirely ("US health system: Radical change is a slim hope," 2009, para. 4-5).

If something doesn’t change in the current healthcare system, studies predict that by 2016 the “cost [of] an employer-sponsored family health insurance plan [will] reach[] $24,000 . . .--an increase of 84%.” This would mean that most American families will “spend 45% of their income on health insurance.” Families will be paying “more for less” as their deductibles and copayments go up. If these figures are accurate, then studies predict that the number of uninsured Americans will grow “to 66 million by 2019” (“Affordable Health Care for America,” 2009).

Because employers choose the insurance programs they offer to their employees, Murray suggests that employers in the current system are encouraging monopolization of the insurance market. For example, in most U.S. cities, “one insurer controls 50 per cent or more of the entire market” ("US health system: Radical change is a slim hope," 2009, para. 16).

Murray’s article suggests that insurance companies (particularly the major ones) can be discriminatory in their policies with the current healthcare system, which makes access to insurance harder for anybody that is not employed or does not make enough money to pay insurance premiums. The high cost of cancer care makes the options available to the uninsured dire without the help of "government-run programs, disability benefits, aid from voluntary organizations, and living benefits from life insurance policies, including viaticals (sale of life insurance policies)” (American Cancer Society)

The 2009 document “Affordable Health Care for America,” published by the Office of Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the Affordable Healthcare for America Act, generalizes the following bottom line for insurance coverage under the new and old system.

“What has the Insurance Company-Dominated System Done to You?”	"What Will Health Insurance Reform Do for You?”
Denied Coverage Coverage can be capped or dropped when you get sick Skyrocketing costs/bankruptcy for many Insurance monopolies/big corporate profits	Everyone Covered Coverage can’t be capped or dropped when you get sick Affordable coverage and lower medical costs Greater competition and choices

(Affordable Health Care for America, 2009)