Tanya Elena Balsky

Got Coverage?

At first, I thought my sister was crazy. She moved out to California after college graduation with her then-boyfriend, looked for a job, and started worrying about health insurance. After a few months, she said matter-of-factly "...and if I don't find something in time, we'll just get married and I can get coverage from his insurance." Sounds crazy, right? Then I started hearing whispers of it everywhere. Couples getting married six months out of college, swearing that they would have gotten married anyway but having to push it forward because only one of them could find a job that provides health insurance.

When I look at the statistics, though, this sounds much less crazy. Between 2000 and 2004, for example, the number of Americans covered by health insurance dropped by 1.5 percentage points. This is skewed dramatically by gender; in that same time period, the number of Americans women covered by health insurance dropped by nearly 3.75 percentage points. The contrast is even more stark among those who depend on their jobs for insurance- in the same time period, those with employer based insurance dropped by 3.8 percentage points and those aged 18-24 dropped by 6.4 percentage points, indicating that fewer entry level jobs are providing health benefits and the problem is worsening. Of course, this doesn't even take into account the fact that employee contributions to insurance increased more than 143% between 2000 and 2004, and out of pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments, and co-insurance rose 115% during the same period- or that approximately half of bankruptcies are due to medical causes, and 75.7% of these cases are families that had medical insurance at time of illness onset.

Health insurance is necessary, though, and becoming even more so. The cost of health care for the uninsured is much higher than for insurance companies, partially due to the market power of insurance providers and partially due to the fact that those without health insurance receive less preventative care and later care in case of illness or injury, exacerbating the problem. Moreover, the problem of the uninsured is passed on to those who are insured in the form of higher premiums. Families USA estimates that In 2005, premium costs for family health insurance coverage provided by private employers will include an extra $922 in premiums due to the cost of care for the uninsured; premiums for individual coverage will cost an extra $341.

Of course, though it is very easy to blame employers for not providing sufficient health coverage, the cost of providing benefits is skyrocketing. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation report on Aug 19, 2004 , "Employers have been reluctant to hire full-time employees because the cost of health benefits, about $3,000 per year per employee, has increased 8.1% during the past year -- as much as three times the inflation rate and the rate of increases in wages and salaries... During the second quarter, benefit costs -- including health care -- increased 7.3% over last year."

With these statistics and my imminent graduation in mind, I propose the following solutions: we need to work for universal insurance coverage, and, in the meantime, significantly increased insurance regulation combined with the tighter enforcement of monopoly laws within the industry. Otherwise I'll be forced to post the following personals ad:

SWF, 21, with advanced degree, seeks gainfully employed
marriage-minded male. Those without health benefits need not apply.

Tanya Elena Balsky: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 10:01 AM, May 30, 2006 in Health Care
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