Posted on 11/29/2006 8:06:58 PM PST by NormsRevenge
When it comes to paying the skyrocketing bills for health insurance, Californians are feeling more pain than the average American.
The average cost of premiums jumped 8.7 percent in 2006 -- outstripping the 7.7 percent increase in premiums nationwide, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland. That's more than double the 4.2 percent rate of inflation in California.
And chalk this up as a bitter side-effect: Single California workers no longer pay less than the rest of nation for the favorite type of health insurance in the state.
That news has widespread impact. Half of the state's workers with health insurance -- vs. 20 percent of Americans overall -- are enrolled in popular health maintenance organizations, or HMOs, which seek to contain costs by hiring their own stable of doctors and carefully monitoring care and costs. About half those California workers sign up for single coverage.
``The big picture is that costs continue to increase at a significantly higher rate than inflation everywhere, including in California,'' said Jill Yegian, director of the health insurance program for the California HealthCare Foundation in Oakland. ``The advantage we had in California with tightly managed HMOs has eroded.''
The survey doesn't explain why HMOs no longer charge less in California. But Yegian speculates that one factor dates to the consumer backlash against managed care in the 1990s. That had a disproportionate effect on California insurers because HMOs were so entrenched here. Now that the backlash is abating, ``that takes the brakes off'' on prices, she said.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Probably due to all those sex change ops in SF.
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You got that right.
Within a four year period my wife's health insurance went from $50 a month to $300 a month. U-G-L-Y.
Within a four year period my wife's health insurance went from $50 a month to $300 a month. U-G-L-Y.But now you have no deductables, your prescriptions are fully covered, you can choose your own primary care doctors, and refer yourselves to specialists within the network. I would say that your $300.00 is well spent. Try the healthcare system here in Victoria BC. You would think you were in a mud-thatch village on the Sudanese frontier in Uganda.
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