The average total cost of employer-provided health coverage passed $20,000 for a family plan this year, according to a new survey.The $1,655 average deductible is much higher than what most people can afford.
Worker pay has not increased anywhere near the rate of out of pocket healthcare expenses.
Employers shifted costs to employees via higher deductibles and increased co-pays. PPACA has not helped make healthcare more affordable. It has made a lot of money for the greed and leverage boys.
WSJ quoted a private equity underwriter (PEU) in its piece:
“Health-care affordability is generally the No. 1 issue for voters,” said Dan Mendelson, a founder of a health-care consulting firm and former federal official who is now an operating partner at a private-equity firm.
Mendelson works for PEU Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe. I've worked twice for PEU healthcare affiliates, the first time in the 1990's. A private equity firm purchased my current employer last spring.
Our health insurance deductible rose 78% in the last year, the first year of PEU ownership. Our owners reduced the number of paid holidays by 25% and holiday pay by 33%. They eliminated overtime and implemented a payroll system that underpays employees. These moves impaired my ability to pay for the increased healthcare responsibility designed by my PEU employer.
PPACA's designer, Nancy Ann Deparle,. came from the PEU world and to it she returned. The average employee suffers greatly from healthcare greed. I see it every day from the inside.
Update 9-26-19: Wolf Street noted the shafting of employees under health reform.
Update 10-14-19: Congress asked Blackstone and KKR for information on how private equity ownership contributed to rapidly rising healthcare costs.
Update 12-16-19: Healthcare inflation is twice that of the Consumer Price Index so far in 2019.
Update 4-16-20: A coronavirus pandemic revealed
America's broken healthcare system and PPACA's many shortcomings. How
many 22 million newly unemployed can afford the premiums? How many of
these will get COVID-19 and die at home without proper care?
Update 4-3-22: The average health insurance premium more than tripled for a family plan since PPACA passed in 2010. Cost curve bent but in the wrong direction. Concave went convex.
