Cost to Individuals

Measuring the precise cost of rising healthcare expenditures to individual Americans is difficult because costs vary from person to person.  What is not difficult to measure are the ways in which every American citizen is affected by the healthcare’s rising costs on an individual basis whether directly or indirectly.  Of course all Americans face higher tax burdens to fund an increasingly expensive Medicare program, but the rising cost of care is not limited to publically funded health insurance.   For Americans that have private health insurance, to experience healthcare’s rising cost, they need only to look as far as their own pocket.  The rise in health insurance premiums coupled with the increase in out-of-pocket contributions over past years mirror the wider trends in national healthcare expenditures.  Each year it is becoming more and more expensive for Americans to insure themselves as well as their families.  Without an effort to contain healthcare’s rising cost, Americans will have to sacrifice more and more to remain insured or perhaps even worse, face financial hardship to get healthcare in their moment of need.

• In 2007, the average cost for family coverage was $12,106 per year, while the cost for individual coverage was $4,479 per year.  Continuing at current rates in 2014, the average cost for individual coverage will be $8,868 per year and the cost for family coverage will hit $23,969 per year. ¹⁴
• In 2001 the average employee spent $1,320 on out of pocket healthcare costs (premiums, deductibles, copayments, etc.)  In 2005, they spent $3,597. ¹⁵
• Over half of all personal bankruptcies are to due medical bills. ¹⁶
• 1 out of 5 working age Americans-both insured and uninsured-have medical debt they are paying off over time. ¹⁷