The coming of Obamacare did not lead to the Armageddon of health care inflation that many conservatives predicted, and for that they should show proper humility. But neither did the Affordable Care Act (ACA) relieve the staggering and still-growing burden of America’s prosperity-killing health care costs—a reality that progressives need to acknowledge and tackle head on.
The cost of health care is now so high that even historically low percentage increases in medical inflation do serious damage to the economy and household budgets. The total annual cost of health care for a typical family of four covered by a typical employer-sponsored plan reached $22,030 in 2013, or roughly the equivalent cost of buying a brand-new Honda Accord LX every year. That was bad enough, but last year, with the base cost so high, a “mere” 5.4 percent increase in health care costs sucked an additional $1,000 out of such a family’s standard of living.
The continually growing burden of health care costs is a major reason why employers are so reluctant to hire and wages remain stagnant. At the same time, even patients with employer-provided plans are paying an ever higher share of the cost of their care (42 percent in 2014) directly out of their own pocket. What moderation we’ve seen in the rate of increase in health care spending comes not from increases in health care efficiency or decreases in health care prices but from a tough economy combined with the spread of high-deductible health care plans, including those offered on the exchanges under Obamacare, which cause people to forego care they may well need.
via Lost in Obamacare by Phillip Longman | The Washington Monthly.
