How High Deductible Health Plans Come At The Expense Of Employees
By Consumers For Quality Care, on April 1, 2021
![How High Deductible Health Plans Come At The Expense Of Employees](https://consumers4qualitycare.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/medical-781422_1920-860x400.jpg)
According to Forbes, health insurance has become our country’s biggest hustle. While every other sector of the U.S. economy struggled during the coronavirus pandemic, our nation’s top health insurance companies – like UnitedHealth, Anthem, and Humana – saw their profits double.
Until the 1990’s, insurers spent 95 cents on every dollar on medical care. The remaining five percent was used to cover overheads, with a small profit left over. But as medical treatment became more complicated and lucrative, prices have aggressively risen at a rate of almost six percent annually.
Increasingly, prices are now being shifted to consumers to grow profits. Whereas in 2007, only five percent of employer-based plans were high deductible health plans (HDHPs), today 51 percent of U.S. employees are enrolled in an HDHP, resulting in higher out-of-pocket costs than ever before. Doctors and drug makers get to charge higher prices every year. Employers get to pass along a sizable portion of costs to their employees. Employees suffer the consequences.
Statistically, the average American reaches their max deductible every year by May 19. A study found the average annual deductible for single-person coverage was $4,364 and $8,439 for a family. And the lack of transparency in health care prices makes it nearly impossible for patients to “shop around” for what is often emergency care or life-saving prescriptions.
These high deductible plans have resulted in a higher number of patients going without care. Research from Harvard on Medicare patients showed that a $10 increase in out-of-pocket health care expenses for a prescription resulted in a 23 percent reduction in people taking their prescriptions and a 33 percent increase in deaths.