This article about health insurance in America is spectacular. Although it is quite long, I definitely recommend reading it if you have a spare 20 minutes. The author's recommendations are on the last page, if you really want to skip ahead.
A teaser (I'm not sure how to do block quotes in Blogger....):
"Let's say you're a 22-year-old single employee at my company today, starting out at a $30,000 annual salary. Let's assume you'll get married in six years, support two children for 20 years, retire at 65, and die at 80. Now let's make a crazy assumption: insurance premiums, Medicare taxes and premiums, and out-of-pocket costs will grow no faster than your earnings-say, 3 percent a year. By the end of your working days, your annual salary will be up to $107,000. And over your lifetime, you and your employer together will have paid $1.77 million for your family's health care. $1.77 million! And that's only after assuming the taming of costs! In recent years, health-care costs have actually grown 2 to 3 percent faster than the economy. If that continues, your 22-year-old self is looking at an additional $2 million or so in expenses over your lifetime-roughly $4 million in total."
1 comment:
That is unbelievable! Dad and I discussed an interesting article in Bill McClellen's column in yesterday's Post which proposed what sounded like a sensible plan to us. I will bring it Saturday and share it with you. It seems like there should be plenty of very smart people who could work together and figure out a good plan!
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