Cost of health-care

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2008/may/employees_nominally_.php
May, 2010
Employees Nominally Pay 41% of Family Costs
"For 2010, of the $18,074 total medical cost for a family of four under a preferred provider organization, the employer pays about $10,744 in employer subsidy ( 59%) while the employee pays $4,325 ( 24%) in employee contributions and $3,005 ( 17%) in employee out-of-pocket costs."
Since the employer’s contribution to the premium is actually paid by the employee in foregone wage increases, the entire $18,074 in typical family medical costs comes out of the employee’s total compensation package. Just think of how much more those who actually need health care would be paying. The increasing shift of costs from the employer to the employee, although only nominal, does make more explicit the employee’s role in paying for health care.
No doubt the advocates of consumer-directed health care applaud this increased transparency in who is actually paying our very high health care costs. But perhaps we should applaud as well. Maybe then there would be a greater demand to adopt a much more equitable system of financing health care in America.
* http://publications.milliman.com/periodicals/mmi/pdfs/milliman-medical-index-2010.pdf
-- Don McCanne