Americans will have to shoulder greater and greater healthcare costs into the future, with incomes unlikely to keep pace with the increases, a new study shows.
The study, released yesterday by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC), projects that overall private health insurance costs and out-of-pocket spending will rise 6 percent to 7 percent annually through 2016.
HSC's national study, supported in part by the Commonwealth Fund and published in the January/February edition of Health Affairs, said that more than one in six Americans - or 17.7 percent of the non-elderly population - spent more than 10 percent of after-tax income on health care in 2004, up from 15.9 percent in 2001.
The research conducted by HSC and the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) found that the financial burden was driven entirely by people with private insurance, most of whom had employer-sponsored coverage.
For people with employer coverage, out-of-pocket spending for premiums and services rose $553 to $3,211, a 21-percent increase between 2001 and 2004 after accounting for inflation, researchers said. The increase in high financial burden for this group would have been higher if not for a small rise (4.6 percent) in family incomes during the same period, researchers said.
"Many families with private insurance - especially those with low incomes - are having difficulty paying medical bills," said HSC Senior Fellow Peter J. Cunningham, coauthor of the study with Jessica S. Banthin and Didem M. Bernard of AHRQ.
Commonwealth Fund Assistant Vice President Sara Collins said, "With the U.S. currently engaged in a national debate over expanding health insurance, these findings underscore how important it will be to ensure that everyone has access to insurance that covers essential services with premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket-costs that are affordable relative to family income."
The Health Affairs article, titled Financial Burden of Health Care, 2001-2004, is based on an analysis of AHRQ's 2001 and 2004 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey. In both years, the survey included information on more than 28,000 people under age 65.