First, they learned their rates will rise by an average of 11 percent next year.
Next, they opened a slick flier from the insurer urging them to send an enclosed pre-printed, postage-paid note to Sen. Kay Hagan denouncing what the company says is unfair competition that would be imposed by a government-backed insurance plan. The so-called public option is likely to be considered by Congress in the health-care overhaul debate.
“No matter what you call it, if the federal government intervenes in the private health insurance market, it’s a slippery slope to a single-payer system,” the BCBS flier read. “Who wants that?”
Who wants that? Gosh, let me think. How about people who don’t want their premiums increasing by over 10 percent a year to pay for the enormous cost of lobbying the Federal government?
"Since 1999, premiums have increased a total of 131%, compared with 38% growth in workers' wages and a 28% rise in inflation."
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/family-health-pr...
So for those of you without calculators at home, this means that on average, premiums are going up at 13% pace per year in the period '99-'09.
Health care reform, anyone?
Just want to say, don't be fooled by that 38% growth in workers pay. Executive pay has skewed that statistic.
Furthermore, here's some more fun reading!!!
"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."
Small Business Republicans, tell us how opposing this plan helps those statistics.
Regulation now!
http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml