Living on the Edge: Health Care Expenses Strain Family Budgets
By Peter J. Cunningham, Carolyn Miller, and Alwyn Cassil
Center for Studying Health System Change
December 2008
Affordability of medical care is a central focus of health care reform efforts. As health care costs continue to increase and the economy declines sharply, there is very little cushion in family budgets for health care costs, even for families with insurance coverage. Financial pressures on families from medical bills increase sharply when out-of-pocket spending for health care services exceeds 2.5 percent of family income, according to a new national study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC). Low-income families and people in poor health experience financial pressures at even lower levels of spending, largely because they have already accumulated large medical debts they are unable to pay off.
There is little consensus among policy makers on how to set affordability standards in medical care, in part because there is little empirical evidence to guide these decisions. In addition, most of the policy focus has been on identifying affordability standards for insurance premiums, such as in the Massachusetts health reform, with much less attention on affordability standards for out-of-pocket spending on medical services. Some analysts propose setting affordability standards based on the current distribution of out-of-pocket spending for services, such as typical spending levels for a privately insured, middle-income population.
However, a limitation with this approach is that unlike spending for premiums, mortgages, rents, and other household necessities, out-of-pocket spending on medical care is much less predictable, often unexpected and not entirely discretionary. While families may be able to budget for preventive and routine health care needs, high out-of-pocket medical spending by families is more often associated with urgent or serious health conditions, as well as provider recommendations for treatment, rather than discretionary patient choices. Thus, what people actually spend out of pocket on medical care reflects–at least in part–what they need or are prescribed, not necessarily what they can afford.
http://www.hschange.org/CONTENT/1034/
Everyone is concerned about health care costs, and there is now a consensus that we must do something about it.
The leading proposals for health care reform are designed primarily to make health insurance affordable, when what we really need to do is make health care affordable. These proposals use insurance product design and tax policies to try to balance the health benefits provided with the ability of the individual to contribute to the premium. In an effort to keep the premium affordable, patient cost sharing is included as an incentive to reduce utilization of both beneficial and marginal health care services and products.
This study demonstrates a major flaw with this approach. Although the family may be able to budget for a modest component of an insurance premium that remains the same each month, family budgets are now so tight that a mere 2.5 percent of family income that might be required for out-of-pocket cost sharing can be a family budget buster. This study shows that cost sharing can impair both family finances and family health care access.
Financing of our health care system should be totally separated from health care access. Even modest financial barriers to access should be removed from the delivery side of health care. Cost sharing has only a negligible impact on our total national health expenditures yet it can have a serious impact on the finances and health of individuals and their families.
On the financing side, attempting to establish insurance premiums that would be affordable based on family income requires an administratively complex system of matching premiums with benefits and using tax policies to establish equitable contributions by families. This is because we have been fixated on the concept that each family must have a specific, designated private health plan and the financing must fit that plan.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Look at the traditional Medicare program. A single risk pool is established for all Medicare beneficiaries and that pool is financed primarily through equitable taxes. Medicare does have cost sharing, but this study shows us that Medicare would serve us even better if cost sharing were eliminated, fully funding the risk pool to cover payment for all essential services.
The most efficient and equitable method of financing health care for all of us would be to establish one single, universal risk pool and fund it with a system of progressive taxes. We can all pay our fair taxes, but, with fairly spartan family budgets now being the norm, we shouldn’t have to budget medical costs that are less predictable, often unexpected, and frequently in excess of discretionary income.