{"id":1113,"date":"2019-10-13T21:18:39","date_gmt":"2019-10-14T04:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1113"},"modified":"2019-10-13T21:18:39","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T04:18:39","slug":"when-will-healthcare-cost-too-much","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1113","title":{"rendered":"When Will Healthcare Cost too Much?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Most healthy people think about their health insurance about\nas much as they do their retirement; not much. It\u2019s hard to value something\nthat you don\u2019t use regularly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a recent survey showed that the total cost for an\nemployed person\u2019s health care has risen to now be more than $20,000 a year.\nThat includes what the employer pays as well as the individual with\ndeductibles, copays and family premiums. The cost increased 5% this year, is\nexpected to go up 6% next year and has been rising at twice the rate of wage\ngrowth for 10 years or more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since I hear so few griping about it, I find myself thinking\nof the frog in a pot slowly brought to a boil. Most of us aren\u2019t jumping out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some are. For the first time in 10 years the number of\nuninsured Americans increased last year, now up to 8.5%. Before the Affordable\nCare Act, we were at 13.3% uninsured. I can\u2019t blame folks for dropping health\ninsurance when the total annual cost could buy you a pretty good car, or pay\nfor a kid\u2019s college costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But will these slow but steady increasing health care costs\nkill us? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe they already are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Think how plush \u201cCadillac Health Plans\u201d for well-paid or\nunion workers tie them to a job. They might have an idea of a way to do this\nwork better and want to go off on their own and build a new business. But the\ncostly health insurance for small businesses could scare off an entrepreneur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe the cost of health care is contributing greatly to\nour stagnating economic growth, but even more to our slow wage growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hit the lowest unemployment on record recently, but wage\ngrowth in adjusted dollars, especially for the lower income earners has not\nchanged much since the 1960\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But benefits have increased significantly. Wages are being\neaten up by health insurance costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a significant amount of our income being siphoned into\nhealth care, we ought to all be pretty healthy, huh? Let me remind you, the\nUnited States has seen a declining life expectancy for three of the last four\nyears. This is mostly due to the striking rise in accidental overdose deaths\nand suicides. And we can put a lot of the blame for narcotic overdose deaths\nsquare at the feet of our medical industrial complex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s stop feeding it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s what the Democratic presidential candidates who have\nlined up behind Bernie for the Medicare for all have in mind. Outlaw private\ninsurance, let government starve the big Pharma, for-profit hospitals. I\nunderstand their perspective, I just don\u2019t buy it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe the market place would be much more powerful than\na big government program, and would better suit our national character. Let\nprivate insurance compete against government plans, the so called \u201cPublic\nOption\u201d. Such a change might be acceptable, though I can\u2019t imagine any Republican\nvoting for anything right now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the Republican plan for this? I\u2019ve heard the\n\u201cRepeal\u201d chant for eight years, then the \u201cRepeal and Replace\u201d chant for another\ntwo, but now I only hear crickets from Republicans; not even a Tweet. Maybe\nthey have found a cool place in the simmering pot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t think so. I think we are all in this frog stew\ntogether. And the sooner we can start talking about realistic solutions, the\nbetter off we all will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can start on the state level. There are many promising\ninnovations some states have made in their Medicaid programs. Look at\nMissouri\u2019s Health Homes for high cost patients. Consider Tennessee\u2019s waiver for\nMoney Follows the Person to move patients out of high cost nursing facilities\ninto community care. Idaho has a similar waiver. Oregon is rolling out\nCommunity Accountable Care Organizations that put some of the risk (and reward)\nat the local level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s time to get to work. Feel the heat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most healthy people think about their health insurance about as much as they do their retirement; not much. It\u2019s hard to value something that you don\u2019t use regularly. But a recent survey showed that the total cost for an employed … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1116,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1113\/revisions\/1116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}