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

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The study, authored by researcherds from the National Opinion Research Center and Watsob Wyatt Worldwide and funded by TheCommonwealth Fund, examinexs trends in employer-sponsored insurance from 2004 to 2007. It found risin g rates of underinsuranceand unaffordability, particularly for poorer and sickerd people. In 2007, adults with employer coverage faced an averageof $729 annually in out-of-pocket costs for medica services, including deductibles and other forms of cost sharinfg such as copayments and coinsurance. That represents a 34 percent increasedfrom 2004, when the average out-of-pockety burden was $545.
Health plans covered a slightlu smaller percentage of overall expenses in 2007 than but growth in overall health spending was the chief culprig behindrising out-of-pocket costs, according to the “The years from 2004 through 2007 were a period of economic yet rising health care costs stillo eroded the value of employer-sponsored coverage,” said lead authofr Jon Gabel. “Historically, employees have been askedd to shoulder even more ofthe cost-sharing burden duringv difficult economic times such as the United Statees is now experiencing.
Hence, it is imperativwe that health care reform include constraints on health or else health insurance will becomwe unaffordablefor low- and middle-income Americans, and reform itself will be