Milliman has released their 2011 Milliman Medical Index. The MMI shows that healthcare costs for American families has more than doubled in less than nine years. Furthermore, the average American family of four which is enrolled in a PPO plan paid $3,280 in out of pocket medical expenses in 2010.
According to the 2011 MMI (Milliman Medical Index) is $19,393, which is more than double the $9,235 amount paid for healthcare costs in 2002. The 2011 figure is $1,319 higher than 2010, and represents and increase of 7.3%. The rate of increase has been slowing in recent years, but the rising cost of healthcare is taking its toll on families.
The MMI is based on families enrolled in an employer sponsored PPO health plan. The employer pays 59% of the total cost, or $11,385 of the $19,393. 24% of the cost, or $4,728 is the employee contribution, which pays the remaining premiums, and is usually taken out of the employee paycheck. The final 17% or $3,280 comes directly out of employees checkbook, to pay for co-pays, deductibles or non covered items.
The amount an employee or family pays out of pocket increased dramatically from 2010. From 2010 to 2011 the increase was 9.2% compared to 6.6% the previous year. This is an important figure for most concerned about the high cost of healthcare. Increasingly, employers are pushing more of the responsibility of paying for healthcare on to their employees. Many now offer only high deductible plans, in an effort to further reduce their costs.
The MMI is broken down geographically as well, with Miami ($23,362), New York City ($22,785) and Chicago ($21,996) having the three highest figures, while Phoenix ($17,336), Atlanta ($18,292) and Seattle ($18,536) have the lowest costs.
Your comments re: HD insurance assumes the person can #1) pay the premium in the first place, #2) pay the higher deductible. In many cases, the person cannot afford it, so will, through no fault of their own, forego the treatment/test, which often will lead to a more complex problem later that puts a much higher $$ burden on our healthcare system.
As far as your health savings accounts, again, this assumes that the person can set aside that money in the first place, in order to save, say, 20% in taxes on that $1000. These two options are really not attainable and do nothing to help those who don’t have the monies to start with.
A great deal of our rising healthcare expenses is due to the 30-40% profit that private insurance company stockholders demand. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that when you add in 30-40% (it has to come from SOMEWHERE), healthcare will cost more.
Healthcare, like firefighting and police work, should not be doled out to those who can afford it, and the rest be damned. Sociopathic personalities, of course, have no problem with the “I got mine, you get yours” mindset. They don’t care. They have no conscience or sense of social responsibility. So unless I’ve completely misinterpreted your multiple blogs, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. And I vehemently do.
I’m not sure what it is you have a disagreement with. This post points out that out of pocket medical costs are rising sharply. The statistics are based on a survey of those who have health insurance. We could not come up with data about the out of pocket medical costs for those without health insurance, but since healthcare costs have risen significantly in recent years, we can only assume this affects those without insurance as well.
INSNET strives to help both the insured and uninsured save money on their medical bills. We understand that health insurance is expensive and many have no choice but to go without due to the high premium cost.