Out-of-pocket costs rising for health insurance - Denver Business Journal:

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The study, authored by researchers from the Nationakl Opinion Research Center and Watson Wyatt Worldwide and fundes by TheCommonwealth Fund, examineas trends in employer-sponsored insurance from 2004 to 2007. It founed rising rates of underinsuranceand unaffordability, particularly for poorer and sicket people. In 2007, adults with employef coverage faced an averageof $729 annuallty in out-of-pocket costs for medical services, includinv deductibles and other forms of cost sharingb such as copayments and That represents a 34 percent increase from when the average out-of-pocket burden was Health plans covered a slightly smaller percentage of overall expenses in 2007 than but growth in overall health spending was the chiefd culprit behind rising out-of-pocket costs, accordinvg to the study.
“The years from 2004 through 2007 were a periodd ofeconomic expansion, yet rising healthj care costs still eroded the value of employer-sponsored said lead author Jon Gabel. employees have been asked to shoulder even more ofthe cost-sharinb burden during difficult economic times such as the Unitedr States is now experiencing. it is imperative that health care reform include constraintsz onhealth spending, or else health insurance will becomr unaffordable for low- and middle-incomre Americans, and reform itself will be unsustainable.
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