Sic Semper Tyrannis

The Kaiser Family Foundation finds more generally bad news about the state of health care/insurance in the US of A Tuesday:

The average cost of health insurance premiums climbed just 7.7 percent over the past year. That was the slowest rate of increase since 2000 -- down from 9 percent the previous year and a far cry from the nearly 14 percent jump three years ago, according to the annual benchmark survey released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The flip side: Premiums to cover a family have vaulted 87 percent since 2000 -- more than four times the rate of inflation and the growth of wages -- a trend that is forcing millions of Americans to go without insurance coverage.

In pure SST form, here's how the situation is even worse than it might appear at first blush:

Experts say premiums would be rising even faster if employers, workers and insurers weren't making health care trade-offs. Many employers are restricting which family members are covered and are forcing workers to pay more before their insurance kicks in. Workers are paying more for checkups, to buy drugs or visit the emergency room. Insurers are limiting the choices that patients have by dropping the priciest hospitals, doctors and labs.

...

Added Richard Bank, who heads the AFL-CIO's collective bargaining department: ``All this puts ever-increasing pressure on employers to try to cut benefits. This is creating a race to the bottom. If I were to generalize, this is the pre-eminent problem at the bargaining table, and it has been for four or five years.''

...

But some experts say the most ominous finding is that the number of employers offering health coverage is steadily eroding. Notably, just 48 percent of employers with three to nine workers offered health coverage -- down from a peak of 58 percent as recently as 2002.

All of this will continue to get worse until we return to a free-market system. Kaiser even suggests we implement market-based reforms, and Hewitt Associates noticed in a separate survey:

A survey of 18,000 workers by the consulting company Hewitt Associates released last week found that just 34 percent track their health care bills, and less than half bother to estimate how much they're likely to spend in the coming year. And of those enrolled in high-deductible plans, 40 percent said they wouldn't re-enroll.

Hmm, costs for something where its not uncommon to ignore costs are getting out of control? There's a shocker. I bet the numbers are even worse when you look at how many don't consider cost until after receiving the care.

The high-deductible point is also important. These plans are almost unambiguously losers compared to managed-care plans that cost about the same amount but give you ongoing care. This situation will continue until employers are actually forced to contribute to Health Savings Accounts--or the entire system is decoupled from employers (as I've written).

I think one of the most ruinous things the government has done in the past decade is the destruction of the health care system. Truly breathtaking.

Update: Dean baker has some brief but incisive points on this topic, in response to another David Leonhardt piece of pravda, where he claims we're actually getting what we pay for. Hah!