By Laura Ungarand Jayne O'Donnell
The Battle Creek Enquirer
Originally published January 2, 2015
Here are two excerpts:
A recent Commonwealth Fund survey found that four in 10 working-age adults skipped some kind of care because of cost. The portion of workers with annual deductibles — what consumers must pay before insurance kicks in — rose from 55% eight years ago to 80% today, according to research by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
A Mercer study showed that 2014 saw the largest one-year increase in enrollment in “high-deductible plans” — from 18% to 23% of all covered employees.
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Doctors and doctor groups say such individual coping strategies can be helpful, but action is needed on a national level. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently came out with a policy statement saying high-deductible plans “may be a less desirable way to lower health care costs than other means … even if ‘other means’ require more work by government, insurance companies and other health policy participants.”
The entire story is here.