Higher Health Insurance Premiums This Year? Blame ObamaCare
Most Americans saw their insurance bills jump this year, according to a new study from the Kaiser Family Foundation. The average employer-based premium for a family increased a startling 9% in 2011. Over the next decade, rates are expected to double.
The Kaiser report is only the latest piece of research to indicate that ObamaCare isnt driving down health care costs, as its proponents promised, but is instead accelerating their rise.
This year, the average premium for a family hit $15,073 $1,303, or 9%, higher than the year before. And thats on top of increases of 5% in 2009 and 3% in 2010.
Employees are picking up a substantial portion of that tab. They paid an average of $4,129 for their family insurance premiums this year more than double what they shelled out 10 years ago. And that figure doesnt include out-of-pocket health expenses.
These premium hikes have outpaced general inflation and salary increases and thus are swallowing a greater share of American households budgets. A study published in the September 2011 issue of Health Affairs found that burgeoning health costs have decimated nearly an entire decades worth of income gains. In 2009, the average American family had just $95 more to spend at will than it did in 1999.
Worse, theres no relief in sight. Next year, employers expect premiums to rise 7.2%, according to the National Business Group on Health.
Posted by: Beavis 2011-10-12 |