Skip to main content

Compound(ing) fracture: the 6%/year health cost road to financial ruin--Rant #2

The second in a series of rants on this critical but wantonly overlooked issue:
The latest news is quite terrifying.  We are reverting to an even higher, pre-Great-Recession-level health care inflation rate of 6% for the foreseeable future.  Given the power of compounding, together with household income stagnating during the last 25 years and also for the foreseeable future, the average American family can be expected to pay twice as much of their income for health care 20 years from now.  Health costs will rise from around 10% of household income to 20%--from around $5,000 to $10,000 on a salary of about $52,000 by 2035, in real/2015 $$. 
Some of you may say, "Scott, you are extrapolating for 20 years, nothing ever keeps trending the same way for that long, things change."  I wish that were true in this case.  Health care costs have been trending well above inflation and wage increases for 35+ years.  Yet the obliviousness to the consequences continues.

It is hard for me to believe that our national leadership has run the numbers on the impact of continuing high health costs on the middle class.  They are acting like it's a minor problem.   HSS calls the increase "relatively modest."  One respected economist referred to the 6% forecast as only "not great news", while the WSJ called the most recent annual increase "merely 6%".  The complacency has to end, and we can help end it...indeed, we have to, as soon as possible. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is it a “Miracle Drug”?...if it Costs a Fortune and Creates Lifelong Dependency...&...Saggy Faces!?

[It’s been a while since our last blog post.  A lot has happened since– including some “miracles” ! So we’re going to do two posts in a row…] Normally we should all be happy about miracle drugs... shouldn't we ? Yes, there is lots of upside from taking semaglutide (Ozempic, Wegovy), tirzepatide (Montjaro)--and upcoming new, even-more-miraculous drugs TBD:  losing huge amounts of weight quickly, a much lower risk of diabetes–and probably less heart disease and other chronic conditions as well.  But what if the “miracle” requires:   $200-300/week, with a lifetime cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars…  a drug that you can never quit…because if you stop taking it, you gain back all the weight it helped you lose–not to mention the chronic diseases which the drugs kept at bay… and it leaves your face (and the rest of your skin?) sagging …    (plus, it’s so new at such high dosages– who knows what happens after years of use…? ) No doubt, in spit...
4 comments
Read more

Both/And: Personal & School & Social Responsibility for Health

Many people are promoting a false dichotomy for who/what to “blame” for decades of pervasive inactivity & unhealthy nutrition--the key preventable factors which have led to the majority of adults developing chronic disease. Some believe that people with preventable chronic diseases made a series of unhealthy choices for decades, for which they need to accept personal responsibility for the consequences. On the other side, a growing number of policymakers focus on the “social determinants of health.”  In other words, there are many things beyond your control, which impact what you eat & drink and how active you are.  This includes factors such as your family, neighborhood, school, employer, transportation, public safety, housing, community layout, etc. etc.  It’s those external social factors which determine your health destiny.   Actually, the personal and social are inextricably connected--not opposite ends of the spectrum.  Let’s consider the role...
Post a Comment
Read more

Post Modern Healthcare’s Leadership Symposium: From Frustrations with Adult Health to Childhood Solutions

During the main panel discussion at highly influential Modern Healthcare magazine’s Leadership Symposium recently, prominent industry CEOs shared their frustrations on the need for change in health care but the lack of progress.  Of all the comments made in a poll of attendees, Modern Healthcare highlighted one by Erin Hammond, a senior value-based programs professional at Humana [ emphasis added by me]:  “Medicare Advantage and Medicare should start for high-risk communities the first day of preschool .  That way the government and healthcare orgs have an entire lifetime to shape healthy habits that will impact the high cost of the elderly population.  Between that and a sugar tax and increasing the quality of food we make available to our population...we would not only see the quality and healthy days of our citizens enhance as they get older, but much lower medical costs .”   Even if you don’t believe in a single cradle-to-grave health plan for all or tax...
Post a Comment
Read more