Expect Health Care Costs to Double, Says Study

The USA's broken health care system will fragment even more. Expect more workers to lose their health care coverage because their employers will find them more unaffordable. Also expect more bankruptcies as a result.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Unless health-care reform becomes a reality, most Americans can expect to pay health insurance premiums that will double by 2016, a new report claims. Left unchecked, the costs of employer-paid health insurance will jump from $11,381 to $24,291 in the next seven years, according to the report, which was released Wednesday by the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). And wasteful spending and inefficiencies are what is fueling the trend, the report contends. "As costs rise, one out of three American's health-care dollars are going to waste and inefficiency," said report co-author Larry C. McNeely II, a U.S. PIRG Health Care Advocate. Wasted dollars include inappropriate and unnecessary care, inflated drug prices and administrative bureaucracy, McNeely said. The total cost in waste in 2007 for insurance bureaucracies, drug companies, medical device manufacturers and providers was $730 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.