plog (what we ponder)
oct 2009
Say What You Will, But Healthcare Costs Are Out of Control
For anyone who doesn’t think some kind of healthcare reform is necessary, please take a moment to study this price chart.
This is how much you would pay for insurance if you were to retire from a typical county in California before the age of 65. The insurer is Anthem Blue Cross of California. The health insurance they are selling is a PPO plan without a high deductible. This plan would allow you to access medical care from most any Blue Cross Blue Shield provider or hospital in the United States without having to pay out thousands of dollars in deductibles first. And that’s great!
However, there seems to be a slight downside and that’s the MONTHLY premiums. Yes. Monthly!
In case you're wondering, the plan in the second column is a high-deductible or HDPPO, which would require you to pay out thousands of dollars before any benefits kicked in, so it is a questionable alternative to say the least. The third column is Kaiser, which restricts your care geographically---that is, you can only get care at Kaiser.
Take a closer look at the basic PPO plan.
If you were to retire before 65 and wanted coverage just for yourself, you would pay $23,938 per year or $1,944 x 12.
Wait. It gets worse.
Let’s say you were married and wanted to include your spouse. The nerve of you! Well, you can more than double what you would be paying.
To include your spouse, you would be paying $48,721 per year or $4,060 x 12. Again, that’s a little expensive, isn’t it?
If you happened to have a child you wanted to insure as well, then the annual premiums jump to $67,246 per year! And mind you this is cash in exchange for insurance!!
Who has that kind of money?
Now, you might call me a bleeding-heart socialist, but this is absurdity. No matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you have to admit these costs are beyond all reason. What is even scarier is that Anthem Blue Cross obviously feels these prices are reasonable or they wouldn’t be charging them.
This is what our insurance system has become when left to itself.
Let’s be honest.
Our health insurance industry has run amok, is completely detached from reality, and is price gouging anything with a pulse. In this case, the people they are robbing are retirees---who are our parents, our grandparents, our aunts and uncles, our neighbors and friends. Our dear insurance companies have had every opportunity to control costs, but they haven’t done anything except raise rates beyond all reason. If anything, they seem content to bankrupt us all, not from medical costs, but from the premiums themselves. In my book, that’s as absurd as it gets.
Something has got to change, don't you think?