Of the many unfunded liabilities that threaten to damage the quality of living for future American generations, the current health care morass is perhaps the most important for our lawmakers to try to fix. According to the National Coalition on Health Care, national health spending will likely reach $2.5 trillion by the end of 2009, taking up 17.6% of U.S. GDP. This number is expected to nearly double in the next decade, while American families continue to struggle with high health insurance premiums. According to an article in Health Matrix magazine, approximately 1.5 million families lose their homes every year because they can’t pay their mortgages as a result of extravagant medical costs. Health care costs threaten to strangle the American government as Medicare and Medicaid costs only continue to skyrocket every year.
While the solutions to this problem are not simple, and advocates for small and large government solutions passionately argue for their respective sides, CYA would like to call for the passage of a final bill that:
| 1. | Lowers the burden of exorbitant health care costs on all Americans. |
| 2. | Puts the government in a position to pay for its healthcare-related liabilities by raising taxes now, or trimming benefits, as necessary. |
| 3. | Guarantees that future generations of Americans will be able to enjoy a quality of life consistent or higher than that which previous generations have enjoyed |
As the inheritors of the American Experiment, we want our leaders to know that our generation will hold elected officials responsible if they do not craft a bill that adequately meets these concerns. Any half-hearted attempt by Congress to meet these problems head on will only delay the inevitable, and the longer we wait, the more likely it is that our generation will pay the price for the errors of the current generation in power.
According to the national coaltion on healthcare:
| • | National health spending will reach $2.5 trillion by the end of this year, accounting for 17.6% of U.S. GDP |
| - | By 2018, national health care spending is expected to reach $4.4 trillion |
| - | National health expenditures will rise by 6.2% annually, while GDP is expected to rise by only 4.1% annually |
| • | Within 3 years, Medicare/Medicaid will account for 50% of national health spending |
| • | According to one study, of the $2.1 trillion the U.S. spent on health care in 2006, nearly $650 billion was above what we would expect to spend based on the level of U.S. wealth versus other nations |
| • | Over the last decade, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased 119 percent |
| • | Employees have seen their share of job-based coverage increase at nearly the same rate during this period jumping from $1,543 to $3,354 |
| • | The cumulative increase in employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have raised at four times the rate of inflation and wage increases during last decade |
| • | The average employer-sponsored premium for a family of four costs close to $13,000 a year, and the employee foots about 30 percent of this cost |
| • | Total health insurance costs for employers could reach nearly $850 billion by 2019. Individual and family spending will jump considerably from $326 billion in 2009 to $550 billion in 2019
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| • | The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that job-based health insurance could increase 100 percent over the next decade |
| • | Employer-based family insurance costs for a family of four will reach nearly $25,000 per year by 2018 absent health care reform. |
| • | Economists have found that rising health care costs correlate with significant drops in health insurance coverage, and national surveys also show that the primary reason people are uninsured is due to the high and escalating cost of health insurance coverage. |
| • | A recent study found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance. |
| • | According to another published article, about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs |
| • | Without health care reform, small businesses will pay nearly $2.4 trillion dollars over the next ten years in health care costs for their workers, 178,000 small business jobs will be lost by 2018 as a result of health care costs, $834 billion in small business wages will be lost due to high health care costs over the next ten years, small businesses will lose $52.1 billion in profits to high health care costs and 1.6 million small business workers will suffer “job lock“— roughly one in 16 people currently insured by their employers |
Sources:
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml
10. Robertson, C.T., et al. “Get Sick, Get Out: The Medical Causes of Home Mortgage Foreclosures,” Health Matrix, 2008.