Factoids

I'm a bit obsessive about gathering little bits of facts. The problem is to organize them into some meaningful understanding.

Here are some factoids dropped by Daniel Gross in his Slate article "The Private Option: Employment-based health insurance is in big trouble, but don't blame Obama.". I've bolded key bits:

The latest report from the Census Bureau on income, poverty, and health insurance is full of interesting data. (For example, median household family income in 2008, at $50,303, was below where it was in 1998. Heckuva job, Bushie, Greenie, and the whole economic team!) Perhaps the most surprising census data are the significant evidence that, even absent a reform bill, the United States is slowly nationalizing health care. In 2008, enrollment in Medicare and Medicaid rose from a combined 81 million to a combined 85.6 million. Add in military health care, and some 87.4 million Americans in 2008 got health insurance directly from a government source—about 29 percent of the total. Meanwhile, health insurance became less tethered to work. The percentage of people covered by employment-based health insurance fell from 59.3 percent in 2007 to 58.5 percent 2008, and the percentage of those working full-time and part-time who lacked health insurance rose in 2008. The ranks of those getting insurance from employers include a substantial number of public employees—teachers, state workers, etc. (In August, government accounted for about 17 percent of payroll jobs.) Add those folks to the people receiving coverage from Medicare, Medicaid, and the military, and, as Jon Bon Jovi once put it, "we're half way there." Most of the Americans who have insurance may already be getting it through the government, one way or another.

...

Economists have correctly noted that wages haven't risen more in this decade in part because companies are paying more for benefits like health insurance. True. But employers have also been passing on rising costs to employees. And according to a new report by Mercer Consulting, companies are planning on doing a lot of that in 2010. ... Mercer notes that between 2004 and 2008, the median family deductible for in-network services in the type of plan offered by the largest number of employers soared from $1,000 to $1,850. Translation: Employees who used their insurance plans with any frequency saw their wages reduced by $850 in that period. And it looks like there are more such "cuts" coming. Next year, Mercer reports, "nearly two-thirds of all respondents (63 percent) will again ask employees to pay a greater share of health plan costs."

...

It's understandable that those who have insurance from their employers are concerned about reform and what they might lose. But those who expect to hold on to the same employer-provided health benefits at the same cost are living on a prayer.

Go view Gross's article to get the links to underlying data for these claims.