Health Care premiums up 59% under Bush
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| Fri, 09-10-2004 - 12:06am |
Families pay $876 more per year for health care premiums
59% increase in health insurance premiums since Bush took office. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual health care survey, “ the cost of job-based health benefits rose by 11.2%, marking the fourth consecutive year of double- digit growth. Premiums continued to increase much faster than overall inflation (2.3%) and wage gains. Since 2001, premiums for family coverage have increased by 59%, compared with inflation growth of 9.7% and wage growth of 12.3%.â€
5 million fewer jobs provide health insurance in 2004 compared to 2001. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, “the survey also found that the percentage of all workers receiving health coverage from their employer fell from 65% in 2001 to 61% in 2004. As a consequence, we estimate that there are at least five million fewer jobs providing health insurance in 2004 that in 2001.â€
The average worker is contributing $73 more a month for family coverage ($876 a year) . The average monthly worker contribution has increased from $149 in 2001 to $222 today.
Health care premiums jump 11.2 percent, Newsday, September 9, 2004 “Health care costs continued to surge this year as family premiums in employer-sponsored plans jumped 11.2 percent, the fourth year of double-digit growth, according to a new study. The cumulative effect of rising health care costs is taking a toll on workers: There are at least 5 million fewer jobs providing health insurance in 2004 than there were in 2001, according to the survey of 3,017 companies by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust.â€

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dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
Pennsylvania Doctors Not Facing a Medical Malpractice Insurance Crisis, Public Citizen Report Shows
Lawsuits Not Responsible for Insurance Rate Spike, Malpractice Awards Are Flat or Declining and No Evidence of a Doctor Exodus
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Contrary to claims by the Pennsylvania Medical Society and its allies in the state legislature, physicians in Pennsylvania are not facing a "crisis" in medical malpractice insurance rates caused by a rash of patient lawsuits and skyrocketing jury awards, according to a Public Citizen report released today.
Data from government sources show that in Pennsylvania in recent years the annual number of medical malpractice awards declined, the number of awards per doctor declined, the number of higher-end cases and $1 million-plus jury verdicts declined, and the number of doctors in Pennsylvania increased at nearly twice the rate of the overall increase in state population.
These findings stand in stark contrast to claims made by lobbyists for Pennsylvania doctors and insurers – claims that are being used to justify a state constitutional amendment that would authorize limits as low as $250,000 on the amount injured patients can receive in non-economic damages, also known as "pain and suffering." According to the Public Citizen report, such "caps" on damages do little to reduce the cost of insurance for doctors, while limiting a patient’s ability to hold a health care provider fully accountable for negligence.
"Pennsylvania does not have a problem with medical malpractice lawsuits," said Frank Clemente, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch and an author of the study. "Pennsylvania residents need to look beyond the scare tactics of the American Medical Association and the Pennsylvania Medical Society and demand solutions that will improve the quality of medical care."
Added Lauren Townsend, executive director of Citizens for Consumer Justice, "This report is further evidence of what CCJ has been saying for years – that Pennsylvania needs real patient safety, insurance reform and doctor discipline, not restrictions on patient rights."
Major findings of the 51-page report, The Facts About Medical Malpractice in Pennsylvania, include:
The annual number of medical malpractice awards in Pennsylvania declined by at least 6.3 percent and as much 13.1 percent from 1995 to 2002, depending on which set of federal National Practioner Data Bank (NPDB) data are used. There were 957 medical malpractice awards made in Pennsylvania in 1995 and 832 awards made in 2002 – a decrease of 125, or 13.1 percent.
The rate of medical malpractice awards per Pennsylvania physician dropped at least 9.2 percent and by as much as 16 percent from 1995 to 2002, depending on which set of NPDB data are used. The number of malpractice awards per 100 Pennsylvania doctors was 2.81 in 1995 and dropped to 2.36 in 2002 – a decline of 16 percent.
Mcare/CAT claims, cases and payouts have declined or been stable for the past five years. The number of claims for which payouts were made declined from 706 in 1999 to 699 in 2003, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance. The number of cases in which Mcare has made payouts has dropped from 580 in 1999 to 542 in 2003 – a decrease of 6.5 percent. The total amount of payouts for all claims rose by only 1 percent per year from 1999 to 2003, from $300.8 million to $314.0 million, after adjusting for medical care services inflation.
The number of $1 million jury verdicts fell by 50 percent from 2000 to 2002, declining from 44 in 2000 to 22 in 2002, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance. The overall amount of these awards decreased by 75 percent, from $415 million to $93 million.
The number of medical malpractice cases filed in Philadelphia dropped 58 percent in 2003, as a result of procedural rules changes regarding venues mandated by the state Supreme Court.In 2003, 572 medical malpractice cases were filed in Philadelphia, compared with 1,352 in 2002, according to the Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia.
Claims about doctors abandoning Pennsylvania are contradicted by official data. The number of Pennsylvania doctors rose 5.6 percent from 1994 to 2002, based on the number of physicians who paid into the state’s Mcare fund, the most reliable measure of practicing doctors. This growth rate is 70 percent faster than the state’s 3.3 percent overall population growth rate in the 1990s.
The real malpractice crisis is the fraction of doctors who commit most of the negligence and medical errors. Just 5.3 percent of doctors are responsible for 56 percent of medical malpractice payouts nationally, according to the NPDB. Because of complications with the Mcare fund it is not possible to provide a sufficiently reliable estimate for Pennsylvania, but it is likely the state approximates the national data.
The cost of medical negligence and errors to Pennsylvania patients and consumers is considerable. Based on Institute of Medicine findings, Public Citizen estimates that there are 1,920 to 4,277 hospital deaths in Pennsylvania each year due to preventable medical errors and the costs to Pennsylvania’s residents, families and communities are estimated at $742 million to $1.3 billion each year. But the cost of medical malpractice insurance to Pennsylvania’s health care providers is about $683 million a year.
dablacksox
Cynic: a blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.---Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
Your reach has exceeded your grasp Sox.
~mark~
The other part is the fat cats at the insurance company taking large sallaries and huge bonuses, instead of passing on cost savings to their insureds / subscribers. That would help too.
Welcome to the board thewhiteglove!
The very idea of John
Renee ~~~
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