The high costs of health care and inadequate health insurance coverage are undermining the financial security of millions of Americans. Two of five adults—an estimated 77 million people age 19 or older—struggle with medical bills, have recent or accrued medical debt, or both.
(29) Medical bills or accrued medical debt are problems for more than half of adults with incomes below $35,000 per year and for 62 percent of low-income adults who lack health insurance.
Even those who have health insurance are not immune to financial troubles: three-fifths of working-age people who reported problems were insured at the time their medical bill or debt problem occurred. The trend toward higher deductibles in employer plans may be undercutting one of the major purposes of health insurance coverage—protecting against financial catastrophe. High out-of-pocket costs are a particularly difficult problem for lower-income families. Twenty-nine percent of adults with incomes below $20,000 spend over 5 percent of their incomes on out-of-pocket health care costs, not including premiums, compared with 2 percent of those with incomes above $60,000.
(30)Affordability is an issue for many employers as well. The average family premium for health insurance coverage was $11,000 in 2005—more than the earnings of a minimum-wage worker.
(31) The proportion of firms offering health benefits has declined from 69 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2005.
(32) If health care costs continue on their current course, a greater and greater share of the federal budget will need to be devoted to Medicare and Medicaid, which provide insurance coverage to our nation's oldest, sickest, and poorest individuals.
