Politics

New Study Highlights Urgent Need for Health Insurance Reform

By Karina

Today, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute released a study, The Cost of Failure to Enact Health Reform:Implications for States, underscoring the urgent need for reform and why inaction is not an option for Americans. Without health insurance reform, within 10 years, we can expect:

Individual and family out-of-pocket costs to increase by more than 35 percent in every state. In the best case, 12 states would see individual and family spending increase by more than 50 percent.

As many as 65.7 million Americans to be uninsured (today, there are more than 46 million uninsured). Every state would see at least a 10 percent rise in the number of uninsured; the increase would be more than 30 percent in 29 states.

Employers to pay significantly higher health insurance premiums. In 46 states, employers could be paying more than 60 percent more for health insurance premiums. Employers in 27 states will see premiums more than double.

This state-by-state map from the study shows how much more individuals and families could expect to pay on health care in in ten years without reform - out-of-pocket health care costs could increase by at least 35% in every state:

Read the full report>>

Full post as published by The Gavel on September 30, 2009 (boomark / email).