sure helps their bottom line if we who need meds and health care do disappear, doesn't it.
R
At 02:14 PM 9/6/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Small Employers Severely Reduce Health Benefits
>By MILT FREUDENHEIM
>
>
>athy Steever, office manager of her family's automobile repair shop in Sioux
>Falls, S.D., is expecting a baby in December. Her father, who also works at
>the shop, learned last year that he has cancer.
>
>Even so, their company, called Pro Tune Up, canceled health coverage for all
>five employees last spring. Ms. Steever said premiums jumped by two-thirds,
>to $2,000 a month, from $1,200 in 2001, just when demand for the shop's
>services was slowing in a faltering economy.
>
>Advertisement
>
>
>
>
>The cancellation of benefits at Pro Tune Up added seven adults, including
>two spouses, and four children to the estimated 40 million Americans without
>health insurance. Cutbacks at other small businesses squeezed between rising
>premiums and the sluggish economy are likely to add to that number.
>
>Although most large employers still offer health benefits, fewer small
>companies are providing coverage. Forty-five percent of employers with three
>to nine workers now offer no health benefits, up three percentage points
>from 2001, the Kaiser Family Foundation said yesterday in its annual report
>on employer-based insurance.
>
>That translates into almost 150,000 more workers and dependents without
>insurance.
>
>"There has been a significant decrease in the number of small firms offering
>coverage," said Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Foundation, adding that
>the surge in costs would make health care problems more difficult for policy
>makers in Washington and the state capitals.
>
>Health insurance premiums across the country soared by 12.7 percent, almost
>eight times the 1.6 percent overall inflation rate, in the 12 months ended
>this spring, the Kaiser report said.
>
>It was the largest one-year increase since 1990. Jon Gabel, who directed the
>Kaiser study, said all signs pointed to even higher premiums next year and
>beyond as costs for medical care and prescription drugs continue rising.
>
>Small businesses had even higher premium increases: exceeding 14 percent for
>employers with fewer than 50 workers. That has led many small-business
>owners to abandon coverage, sometimes even for themselves and their family
>members. "Dad is just taking a chance that he's getting a clean bill of
>health on his cancer," said Ms. Steever, whose brother owns Pro Tune Up.
>
>Michael Wiston, president of the Valley Marble Slate Corporation, which
>makes kitchen countertops in New Milford, Conn., said premiums for his seven
>employees had doubled since 2000, to a total of $39,600, while the services
>covered had been reduced.
>
>"I have a liver problem," he said. "In another year, I'll be on a list for a
>transplant. What worries us is: What do they cover, and what don't they
>cover?"
>
>Workers are paying more of the costs, as higher premiums, deductibles and
>co-payments for prescription drugs, doctor visits and hospital charges
>outpace wage increases.
>
>The average share of the premium for single workers rose 27 percent, to $454
>a year, and 16 percent, or $2,084, for families. But wages rose only 3 to 4
>percent.
>
>Annual premiums for preferred provider networks, or P.P.O.'s, which cover
>more than half of insured workers, rose to $8,037 for families, including
>$2,148 on average contributed by each employee. And P.P.O. deductibles rose
>37 percent, to an average of $276 a year.
>
>For a family with income of $30,000, added health care costs, including
>higher payments for drugs, doctor visits and hospital fees, could swallow
>more than half the average raise, said Mr. Gabel, a researcher at the Health
>Research and Educational Trust in Washington. He has tracked employer-based
>health costs since 1987.
>
>"It seems like all we are working for is to pay the insurance," Ms. Steever
>said.
>
>Mr. Altman of the Kaiser Foundation said, "These numbers have huge
>implications for the national debate about expanding health insurance
>coverage, regardless of whether taxes pay the costs or private insurance
>pays."
>
>"Sharply rising health care costs will propel the issue to the very front of
>the national agenda," he said, "but they will also make it much harder to
>solve our big-ticket health problems - drugs for seniors and the uninsured."
>
>Almost all employer health plans use a type of managed care. Only 5 percent
>still have traditional fee-for-service coverage; 26 percent are in health
>maintenance organizations; 52 percent are in P.P.O.'s, which have fewer
>restrictive rules than H.M.O.'s; and 17 percent are in point-of-service
>plans, hybrids that typically combine features of H.M.O.'s and preferred
>provider networks.
>
>With prescription drug costs rising 14 percent to 19 percent a year, more
>than half of insured workers now pay more at the pharmacy. Co-payments for
>typically lower-priced generic drugs are $9 on average, but the co-payment
>for brand-name drugs that have generic equivalents has risen 30 percent, to
>$26, as health plans seek to encourage people to use the generic
>medications.
>
>Companies are pulling back coverage for retirees, the group that typically
>needs the most help paying for drugs. About one in three large companies
>offers retiree health benefits. Only 5 percent of smaller companies - those
>with fewer than 200 workers - provide retiree health benefits.
>
>More than one-third of large companies have increased their retirees' share
>of premiums, and 17 percent have raised drug co-payments.
>
>The Kaiser survey was based on telephone interviews with a random sample of
>2,014 benefit managers at public and private employers, from January to May
>2002. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.