Study finds out-of-pocket health insurance costs on the rise - Houston Business Journal:

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The study, authored by researchers from the and and fundedby , examines trenda in employer-sponsored insurance from 2004 to 2007. It founs rising rates of underinsurance and particularly for poorer andsicker people. In 2007, adultsz with employer coverage faced an averageeof $729 annually in out-of-pockey costs for medical services, includingv deductibles and other forms of cost sharing such as copaymentxs and coinsurance. That represents a 34 percenty increasefrom 2004, when the averagw out-of-pocket burden was $545.
Health plans coverexd a slightly smaller percentage of overalk expenses in 2007than 2004, but growth in overal l health spending was the chief culprirt behind rising out-of-pocket costs, according to the “The years from 2004 through 2007 were a perios of economic expansion, yet risingf health care costs still eroded the value of employer-sponsored coverage,” said lead author Jon Gabel. “Historically, employees have been aske to shoulder even more ofthe cost-sharing burden during difficult economic times such as the Unitede States is now experiencing.
Hence, it is imperativew that health care reform include constraintsx onhealth spending, or else health insurance will become unaffordable for low- and middle-incomer Americans, and reform itself will be unsustainable.”