the Trump Phenomenon

[PaulS]

Originally Posted by buckman

Posted from my iPhone/Mobile device


Premium growth is slow because the product is worse . Look at your deductible compared to before the ACA . Your out of pocket is way up .... Unless of course you get it subsidized .

You're right that prem. growth has slowed bc of that. Companies are pushing more of the cost of the insurance onto the ee. either through higher deductibles or making the ee pay a higher % of the costs. However, the overall costs of health care inflation (called Trend) has been decreasing. The following was from the 2nd part of what I posted.

The Kaiser estimates corroborate earlier estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Employer Cost Index that showed that slow growth in employers’ health benefit costs continued into 2015, as well as results from a national survey released last week by the consulting firm Mercer, which found that employers have seen slow growth persist through 2015 and expect it to continue into 2016.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

However, the overall costs of health care inflation (called Trend) has been decreasing.

Healthcare costs are not decreasing, though...they are just increasing at a slower rate. The trends are positive, but they are smaller positive than they have been in the past. Which hopefully is a start.

[PaulS]

I only read/copied the 1st of 3 pages.

http://healthleadersmedia.com/conten...t-Not-Enough##


The health spending rate is slowing. It has been slowing for a long time in a very incremental way, but we are not able to declare victory here," says the director of PwC's Health Research Institute.

PwC's projections for healthcare cost growth in 2016 provide a mixed review of cost containment.

The good news is that the projected 6.5% increase in healthcare inflation in 2016 is almost half the cost growth of 11.9% in 2007, when PwC first started making its annual projections. The bad news is that 6.5% cost growth is wildly outpacing wage growth and is unsustainable over the long run in a country that already spends close to 18% of its gross domestic product on healthcare.

To put that growth in perspective, the overall rate of inflation in the larger economy over the past year was 0%. "You can see what I would call a little bit of good news, but not enough good news to celebrate yet," Benjamin Isgur, director of PwC's Health Research Institute, said during webcast detailing the findings.

"The health spending rate is slowing. It has been slowing for a long time in a very incremental way, but we are not able to declare victory here. It is one of those things where we are winning a few battles but the overall war of health growth is still there. In fact, when we compare that to our national health expenditures as a percentage of gross domestic product, over these last several decades you see a larger and larger part of our economy spent on health services."


That's not necessarily a bad thing, Isgur says.

"Every economy gets to decide what they are going to spend their money on, but as it rises now past 15% of GDP, it does call into question the crowd out effect. Does that mean there are less resources to spend on things like education and transportation? The healthcare growth rate is still rising faster than general economic inflation."

PwC says the key "inflators" for healthcare cost growth in 2016 are expected to include the rising cost of specialty drugs such as Sovaldi, the Hepatitis C therapy from Gilead Sciences; and cybersecurity measures to prevent or mitigate increasingly sophisticated and aggressive large-scale breaches.

Preventive cybersecurity measures are particularly cost effective, PwC says, costing about $8 per patient record, while post-breach measures, including HIPAA fines and customer restitution, can cost about $200 per patient record.

Cost Deflators

The key "deflator" for healthcare cost growth is expected to be the "Cadillac tax" on insurance premiums that will take effect in 2019. To avoid the 40% excise tax, employers are already altering their benefits designs to increase by shifting more of the expense onto employees. The percentage of employers who are only offering high-deductible health plans has grown from 13% in 2012 to 25% in 2015.

"We are starting to see more and more employees share in the cost of their health plans," Isgur says.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

Cost Deflators

The key "deflator" for healthcare cost growth is expected to be the "Cadillac tax" on insurance premiums that will take effect in 2019. To avoid the 40% excise tax, employers are already altering their benefits designs to increase by shifting more of the expense onto employees. The percentage of employers who are only offering high-deductible health plans has grown from 13% in 2012 to 25% in 2015.

"We are starting to see more and more employees share in the cost of their health plans," Isgur says.

Again, what they are calling "cost deflators", are thing sthat cause premiums to decrease, not things that reduce the overall cost of healthcare. If my employers swithces to a high-deductible plan, my premium will go down, but that doesn't mean my out-of-pocket expenses will go down. So what's the value in knowing that my premiums are increasing at a slower pace, but that's offset by higher deductibles or co-pays?