JustCare

Tag: Deductible

  • Health care information confuses people

    Health care information confuses people

    The Center for Retirement Research blog focuses on how health care information tends to confuse people more than help them. As a result, many people make poor health care choices.

    In truth, information that we need to make smart health insurance choices is largely unavailable–e.g., whether a particular health plan delivers value and how one health plan ranks vis a vis others. Private health plans rarely provide helpful information on what we will need to pay for our care. And, people don’t know what care they may need. So, people understandably cannot choose health plans that save them money.

    Only older adults and people with disabilities have the choice of traditional Medicare and can guarantee themselves access to the doctors they want to see at predictable costs. But, they need Medicare supplemental insurance, which can be expensive and many older adults are hard-pressed to afford it.

    It’s not clear that people could ever have the health care information they need to make rational choices about private health plans. It might not make a material difference if health plan information were less confusing or better information were available. What would make a big difference? Giving people good affordable private health plan choices, which would require a far more heavily regulated private health insurance system than we have today.

    Putting aside health insurance choices, the evidence suggests that people cannot make good choices about health care products and services. They often mistakenly believe that more expensive health care products–e.g. brand name drugs, not generics–are better. One research experiment published in Science found that “Expensive medications tend to make us feel better, even when they’re no different than cheap generics.” People may react to a treatment differently based purely on the cost of the treatment.

    In fairness, most of us are bombarded with health care information that is virtually impossible to understand and steers us in all kinds of directions that may not be in our interest. We are left to wonder what to believe. It’s therefore not surprising that people often believe that more medical tests are better than fewer tests, even when they may not be. And, they skip care because they mistakenly think they cannot afford it. They may think that a physical or MRI will cost more than it actually does.

    A University of Wisconsin report finds that almost half of people who are on a tight budget skip medical tests and treatments because they don’t think they can afford them. About one in three of them don’t fill a prescription for the same reason. They make these decisions thinking their out-of-pocket costs are higher than they in fact are.

    People also do not understand how their health insurance deductibles and coinsurance work. People with high-deductible health plans do not understand that they need to pay for the cost of their care up to the deductible amount, which is often many thousands of dollars, before their care will be covered.

    It’s time we stopped expecting consumers to act “rationally” when it comes to health care and guarantee everyone affordable access to the care they want and need.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Health insurance deductibles continue to rise

    Health insurance deductibles continue to rise

    A new Kaiser Peterson analysis shows that health insurance deductibles continue to rise. And, for many people, the consequence is that their health insurance does not provide coverage until later and later in the year. This year, the typical person will meet her deductible on May 19.

    Today, the average deductible for job-based coverage is more than two and a half times what it was ten years ago. In 2009 it was $533. In 2018, it was $1,350. High deductibles benefit insurers. The higher the deductible charged, the longer before insurance companies have to begin paying for enrollees’ care.

    Almost everyone with insurance now has to pay a deductible, and it is typically their largest out-of-pocket cost. More than eight in ten (85 percent) workers must meet a deductible before their coverage kicks in. Ten years ago, fewer than six in ten (59 percent) had to meet a deductible.

    As a result, out-of-pocket health care costs have increased for people with employer-coverage. In 2017, these costs averaged $792. A decade earlier, they averaged $493.  Of those costs, $130 was for the deductible in 2007 and $411 was for the deductible in 2017.

    What’s more concerning is that high deductibles are keeping some people from getting needed care. People report having trouble affording health care until they meet their deductibles. The higher the deductible, the more trouble people have paying their health care bills. In fact, more than half of people with high deductibles (53 percent) say their savings is lower than their deductibles.

    High deductibles are simply a way for insurers to spend less on care. They discriminate against people with less money, rationing care based on ability to pay. Medicare for All would put an end to out of pockets health care costs and bring greater equity to our health care system.

    In an extensive Google search, I could not find information on the average deductible in Medicare Advantage plans–commercial health plans that offer Medicare benefits–in 2018. But, I did find that some people in Medicare Advantage plans could be spending as much as $7,246 out of pocket for their annual premium, deductible and in-network copays, far more than if they were enrolled in traditional Medicare and bought supplemental coverage.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Congresswoman Jayapal introduces Medicare for All bill

    Congresswoman Jayapal introduces Medicare for All bill

    Today, Congresswoman Jayapal and 105 co-sponsors introduced the Medicare for All Act in the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike most other health reform bills in the House and the Senate, the Medicare for All Act offers comprehensive health care for everyone in the US, including long-term care, and takes hundreds of billions of dollars of waste out of the system.

    The Medicare for All Act would fix our broken health insurance system. We have 30 million uninsured and tens of millions more people who have inadequate coverage, which keeps them from getting needed care. We ration health care even for people with insurance, based on their ability to pay deductibles, coinsurance and out-of-network bills.

    Commercial health insurers add as much as $500 billion in administrative waste to the cost of health care. Moreover, they have no ability to rein in doctor, hospital and prescription drug costs to fair levels. Not surprisingly, we spend about twice as much per person on health care as other wealthy countries, which have far better health outcomes.

    Because health care costs are so high in the US, approximately one in three adults are not getting care their doctors recommend or are not going to the doctor or filling a prescription. 33 percent of U.S. adults go without recommended care, do not see a doctor when sick, or fail to fill a prescription. In wealthy European countries such as Germany and the Netherlands, only about one in 12-14 adults go without recommended care.

    The Medicare for All Act ensures that our health care system puts patients first, giving everyone equal access to good care. A large majority of the public support it, including 86 percent of Democrats and 52 percent of Republicans. And, support is growing as people learn more about how it works and why it works.

    Not only would people be able to use the doctors and hospitals they want, all necessary services would be covered in full, including long-term care, mental health, reproductive health, dental, vision, medical supplies, and prescription drugs.

    The Medicare for All Act would create 2.6 million new jobs. It would help small businesses, as they no longer would need to pay for commercial health insurance for their workers. No longer would insurers come between patients and their doctors to decide what care was needed.

    Moreover, the cost of covering everyone and eliminating premiums, deductibles and copayments would be entirely offset by the savings achieved from the elimination of waste and health insurance industry profits as well as lower provider rates and prescription drug prices. The law would be phased in over two years.

    If you support Medicare for all, please sign this petition.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Eve’s story: Commercial health insurance, inhumane choices

    Eve’s story: Commercial health insurance, inhumane choices

    Millions of hard-working Americans with common health conditions struggle every day to stay healthy because they must rely on commercial insurance to cover their care. Deductibles and coinsurance are so high that people must prioritize their families’ health care needs. They are forced to make choices that are inhumane and unconscionable.

    Eve and her husband Errol Meikle are two middle-class Americans in just this predicament, forced to prioritize their families’ medical needs, hoping against hope for Medicare for All. Medicare for All is a health care system that builds on Medicare. It allows people to see most doctors and use most hospitals anywhere in the country. It improves on Medicare, eliminating premiums, deductibles and coinsurance and expanding benefits to include vision, hearing, dental and home and community-based care. Medicare for All recognizes health care as a right and guarantees everyone in America access to the care they need.

    Eve, a registered nurse, and Errol, a customer service rep, live in Florida with their three children, ages 18, 14, and 6. With good jobs and an annual income just over $80,000, they can no longer ensure their family gets health care. And, they have insurance!

    Eve and her daughter, Kylee, 14, have chronic health conditions requiring attention. Eve has ulcerative colitis. Kylee has scoliosis and gastritis.  But, the deductibles and coinsurance required to get all the care they both need have forced the family into medical debt.

    To live as much as possible within their budget, Eve and Errol must choose which health conditions get medical attention. Putting aside total out-of-pocket health care costs, upfront costs just to get into the doctor’s office, are often prohibitive. Because of Kylee’s scoliosis and gastritis, today, the Meikle’s owe thousands of dollars to doctors and hospitals.

    The big bills started coming in January 2016, soon after Eve got health insurance through her job, and the family started to take care of their health issues. They were not able to do so before then.

    When Eve took her daughter, Kylee, for her annual checkup, the doctor said she needed X-rays to determine whether she had scoliosis. The X-rays alone cost several hundred dollars. And, that was only the beginning. Kylee needed to see a specialist.

    Shopping for health care was not helpful. Eve contacted several specialists in her network to try to keep costs down. But, none could tell Eve what the visit would cost. There were different levels of service, ranging in cost from $450 to $850. And, this was just for a consult and review of X-rays. Kylee would need treatment as well.

    Eve knew she needed to get Kylee to the specialist. Scoliosis can become worse over time and cause problems. But, she didn’t end up doing so because in the six months she was expected to wait for the specialist appointment, Kylee developed a new serious condition.  In Eve’s words, Eve “had to let scoliosis go and pray it would not become worse every year.”

    In the summer of 2018, Kylee became so sick that she could not go to school. She had nausea every day and needed to stay in bed. So, Eve made the call that this illness trumped the scoliosis and ended up canceling the appointment with the bone specialist.  She needed to find out what was wrong with Kylee and get her treatment.

    She scheduled appointments for Kylee with two different specialists to figure out what was causing her severe symptoms. While waiting for the appointments, Kylee had to be admitted to the ER. Her symptoms became too severe–nausea, not eating, not sleeping. Eve hoped to get a diagnosis.

    The hospital sent Kylee home with a prescription but without a diagnosis. Eve was told that “hopefully” the specialist could figure out what was wrong with Kylee. By then, Eve had paid $275 upfront, her copay, to walk in to the ER. Then, after they left the ER, the physician and ER bills came in at nearly $2,000, which she was expected to pay by “cash, check or credit card.” Eve’s insurance has a $3,000 individual family member deductible and a family deductible of $10,000 before it begins covering 70 percent of the approved rate for covered services. Eve could not pay the ER bill and let the hospital staff know. She was told to call the hospital and set up a payment plan.

    Eve then took Kylee to the specialist to get a diagnosis and proper treatment. The upfront doctor’s cost for the visit was $200.  The two procedures Kylee needed, the colonoscopy and the EGD, cost $900 more upfront. And, Eve was charged $180 to learn the diagnosis.

    The total cost for Kylee’s procedures was more than $17,000. Eve owed over $5,000 for the coinsurance, 30 percent of the cost. That’s when Kylee was diagnosed with gastritis and given a prescription.

    Eve was told to schedule a follow-up visit for Kylee, so the doctor could check on how Kylee was doing. But Eve chose not to make that visit. It would have cost $163 upfront. Eve could not imagine what the doctor would say that was worth the cost. “All she’s going to say is how’s it going?” In Eve’s view, there was nothing more the doctor could do. There were no other medications to give. With so much medical debt already, Eve had no choice but to gamble with her daughter’s health. Kylee’s gastritis is still not 100 percent better, and she has yet to see a specialist about her scoliosis.

    Meanwhile, Eve has had to put her ulcerative colitis, which she has had for 22 years, on the back burner.  After taking Kylee from one specialist to another, she had maxed out her credit card. But, Eve’s ulcerative colitis has caused her tremendous and continual pain and misery. It makes getting through a 13-hour shift very difficult.

    Eve explained that one way to treat the ulcerative colitis is to keep your life stress-free. She knows that’s not realistic. She has to go to work, and she has little time to rest. She also needs medications. But, it would be too much to pay for the appointment to get the prescription she needs. Moreover, drugs are expensive. “It’s more on top of more on top of more.”

    Eve and her husband are both college educated, with good jobs, and consider themselves to be making good money. Understandably, Eve struggles to understand their financial and health care situation. They don’t live a fancy lifestyle. “No fancy car. No fancy home.” They pay their mortgage and bills. She says, “I’m frugal. I couldn’t be more frugal.” And, she asks “Why am I having to cancel doctors’ appointments for my family and decide which of my illnesses need the most attention and which will be on the back burner until we can afford to take care of them?”

    That’s Eve’s story. With expensive commercial health insurance from her hospital, Eve lives in pain everyday, and she and her daughter have not been able to get all the care they need.  Eve feels penalized for having health insurance. In her words, “It’s not health insurance when you have to pay so much upfront when you need to see the doctor. It’s a coupon. It’s not insuring me for anything.”

    Eve has often talked with her husband about dropping their insurance and paying out of pocket for their care. Without insurance, she says she could get discounted rates. She could pay $200 instead of $800 for a visit.  And, she would keep the $550 monthly insurance premium in her pocket.  She would have $6,600 a year to pay the discounted fees at the doctor’s office. She also knows that in the event of a catastrophic condition, she would be bankrupt without insurance. So, she keeps it.

    Eve’s choice to have health insurance and make tradeoffs with her own and her families’ health care, is not one that should exist in a humane health care system.

    Eve has always believed in universal health care.  She actively lobbies for Medicare for All, speaks about it and participates in conferences. As she puts it, she is “befuddled” by our current commercial health insurance system. “This isn’t working.” She, and the millions of people like her, must make choices that no one should have to make.

    If you support Medicare for all, please sign this petition to Congress.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Hospital prices should be disclosed, but knowing them won’t help you shop for health care

    Hospital prices should be disclosed, but knowing them won’t help you shop for health care

    A new Trump administration policy requires all hospitals to disclose their prices for people without insurance as a means to help people shop for health care. This policy will never help people save money or get needed care. Nor will it ease their stress about hospital costs. Without Medicare for All–which does away with deductibles and coinsurance–health care costs will remain a burden, forcing people to make choices about their families’ care that no one should have to make.

    Today, people with and without insurance have little clue what their out-of-pocket costs will be in hospital–unless they have traditional Medicare. Hospitals can hide the amounts they charge different insurers for different procedures; insurers, in turn, neither disclose nor limit people’s out-of-pocket hospital costs. People with commercial insurance are regularly surprised by how high they are.

    Hospitals rates tend to put patients at serious financial and health risk. Even with insurance, between deductibles and coinsurance, hospital costs are often beyond their means. Until we eliminate deductibles and coinsurance, the US will continue to ration care based on people’s ability to pay.

    For these reasons, the Trump administration policy requiring hospitals to disclose their charges for the uninsured is of little, if any, benefit to people. It provides no information for people with insurance. And, even if there were full hospital price transparency–information on rates for the insured and uninsured–it is hard to imagine how it would ever help people.

    In short, you should not be expected to shop for health care. You generally have little control over the services you receive in hospital. Moreover, hospital fees for a procedure are an amalgam of different provider charges. The surgeon’s fee might be lower at one hospital than another and the anesthesiologist’s fee higher. But, you could not very well go to one hospital for anesthesia and another hospital for surgery.

    Most important, price should not be the driving factor in choosing where to get health care services. Quality matters. You would never buy a car or a home without factoring in quality. You certainly should not do so with health care services. Yet, we have virtually no good public information available on quality of these services.

    To be clear, hospital price transparency is good public policy even if it cannot help patients. It allows policy experts easily to compare costs for different services, among hospitals, in a particular area, and across the country, for different health plans, and for people without insurance.

    Full hospital price transparency would reveal which insurers are getting better rates for different services and reinforce the point that the health care marketplace sets arbitrary and unreasonable prices and fails to rein in costs. It would expose lack of competition. And, it would help show why we need Medicare for All, fair rates for everyone no matter where they live or which hospital they use.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • What’s the Medicare premium in 2019?

    What’s the Medicare premium in 2019?

    The 2019 standard monthly Medicare Part B premium, which covers physician services and other medical and outpatient care, will increase from $134.00 to $135.50, up $1.50 a month for people with incomes of $85,000 or less. But, many people with Medicare have been paying less than the standard premium. In 2019, these people may see a $5.50 increase in their Part B premiums.

    A “hold harmless” provision in the Social Security Act protects people from paying more in Medicare premiums than the increase in their Social Security monthly benefits from one year to the next. Because Social Security benefits have not increased as fast as the standard Medicare Part B premium, many people with Medicare have not been paying the standard premium. But, Social Security checks are projected to rise by 2.8 percent in 2019. So, people who now pay about $130 a month for the Medicare Part B premium because of the hold harmless provision may no longer be protected from paying the full standard monthly Part B premium.

    Since Social Security benefits are increasing 2.8 percent on average in 2019, an average of $39 a month, Medicare monthly premiums can increase up to 2.8 percent –$135.5o a month maximum–for everyone with Medicare who had been protected by the “hold harmless” provision. Put differently, the majority of people who had been paying less than the standard Part B Medicare premium will see their monthly Part B premium rise more than $1.50; but, for most people, their monthly Social Security check, even after the Medicare premium is deducted, should be at least $30 higher than in 2018.

    In 2019, people whose modified adjusted gross income from two years ago as reported on their federal tax return–about six percent of the Medicare population–pay:

    • $189.60 a month, if their income is above $85,000 and no more than $107,000 ($2.10 increase from 2018)
    • $270.90 a month, if their income is above $107,000 and no more than $133,500 ($3.00 increase from 2018)
    • $352.20 a month, if their income is above $133,500 and no more than $160,000 ($3,90 increase from 2018)
    • $433.40 a month, if their income is above $160,000 and less than $500,000 ($4.40 increase from 2018)
    • $460.50 a month, if their income is above $500,000 ($27.10 increase from 2018)

    To arrive at the premium amount for married people filing a joint tax return, double the income.

    The 2019 Part B annual deductible is $185, up $2.00 from 2018.

    People with incomes up to 135 percent of the federal poverty level, ($1,386 in monthly income for an individual and $1,872 for a couple in 2018; these amounts may increase in 2019) are eligible for help paying their premiums through Medicaid or a Medicare Savings Program.

    For more than four decades, the Medicare Part B premium (medical insurance) was the same for everyone regardless of income, geography or health status, a quarter of the cost of Part B services. (Medicare Part A, hospital insurance, is premium-free if you have contributed into Social Security for at least 40 quarters.)  In 2007, wealthier people with Medicare began paying higher premiums.

    Here are 2019 Medicare Part A costs:

    • The Part A hospital deductible is $1,364 and coinsurance for hospitalizations after day 60 is $341 a day in a benefit period; coinsurance for lifetime reserve days  is $682 a day.
    • The Part A daily coinsurance for skilled nursing facility stays after day 20 is $170.50.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • Medicare Part D in 2018

    Medicare Part D in 2018

    The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new issue brief  on Medicare Part D enrollment, premiums, and cost-sharing in 2018. The biggest takeaway is that if you are among the 43 million people with Medicare who have prescription drug coverage through Medicare Part D,  you should choose your Medicare Part D drug plan carefully. Costs differ considerably among them.

    More than seven in 10 people enrolled in both traditional Medicare (the government-administered plan that covers your care from virtually all doctors and hospitals anywhere in the US) and in Medicare Advantage plans (commercial health plans that contract with the government to offer Medicare benefits) get their prescription drug coverage through Medicare Part D. Almost six in 10 Part D plan enrollees are in traditional Medicare and just over four in 10 are enrolled in Medicare Advantage.

    The average monthly Part D premium is $41, up 2 percent from 2017. Some premiums are as low as $20 and some are as high as $84. Deductibles, the amount you pay out of pocket before coverage kicks in, can be non-existent in some Medicare Part D drug plans. Four in 10 people are in Part D plans without deductibles. More people are enrolled in plans with a standard $405 deductible.

    Coinsurance and copays, the amount you pay out of pocket when you get a covered drug, varies considerably, with generic drugs having far smaller out-of-pocket costs than brand-name drugs, though those costs have risen considerably over the last few years. Drugs that are considered “specialty,” which cost a minimum of $670, often have cost-sharing as high as one-third of the drugs’ price. Forty percent of people with Medicare are enrolled in Part D drug plans that charge coinsurance this high.

    You can check out your Part D drug options on the Medicare Plan Finder, which includes information on premiums, deductibles and the costs of drugs in different Part D drug plans. Unfortunately, the Medicare Plan Finder can be misleading and difficult to use. You can get free help navigating it from your State Health Insurance Assistance Program or SHIP. Or, you might consider other options for keeping your drug costs down.

    Most people with a Medicare Part D plan are enrolled in either UnitedHealth, Humana or CVSHealth.

    Medicare’s Extra Help program helps pay the Medicare Part D premium for about 30 percent of people enrolled in these plans. One million people getting Extra Help pay a $26 monthly premium, on average, for their coverage, though they are eligible for Part D plans for which they do not need to pay a premium.

    If you want Congress to rein in drug prices, please sign this petition.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • People with Medicare spend an average of $5,500 on health care annually

    People with Medicare spend an average of $5,500 on health care annually

    Medicare works to ensure people access to quality affordable health care, but average out-of-pocket health care costs are still considerable. A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation finds that individuals typically spend more than $3,200 a year just on Medicare premiums, deductibles and coinsurance. When you add in costs for services Medicare does not pay for, people spend an average of $5,500 a year out of pocket on health care or, put differently, more than 40 percent of their Social Security benefits.

    Juliet Cubanski and Tricia Neuman analyzed data from 2013 to determine the amount people with Medicare spend on health care. All in, they found that spending on health care eats up about 41 percent of the average monthly Social Security check, $1,115. Average annual Social Security benefits were $13,375 in 2013 and average total income for a person with Medicare was $35,317.  Their report establishes that people with Medicare have far higher annual average out-of-pocket health care costs than the Center for Retirement Research found based on 2014 data, 41 percent of their Social Security benefits as compared to 33 percent.

    To be sure, the percentage of income spent on health care is far higher for people who rely exclusively or almost exclusively on Social Security for their retirement income. And, a notable portion of the 62 million people receiving Social Security benefits rely almost exclusively on Social Security for their income. More than one in five married couples and more than four in ten individuals rely on Social Security for more than 90 percent of their income, according to the Social Security Administration.

    When the Kaiser Family Foundation researchers dug deeper, they found that people over 85 and women typically spent an even higher share of their Social Security income on health care than men and people under 85. People 85 and older spent on average 74 percent of their Social Security benefits on health care costs Medicare does not cover. Women over 85 spent more than men, 83 percent of their Social Security benefits as compared to 58 percent. Because Medicare does not pay for custodial nursing home care or most other long-term care services and supports, the oldest cohort of people with Medicare have especially high out-of-pocket costs.

    Out-of-pocket costs for people in poor health and people with lower incomes were also higher than other people. People in fair or poor health spent an average of $6,128 on health care as compared to $5,246 for people in excellent, very good or good health. Put differently, people who could perform all the activities of daily living–bathing, feeding, toiletting, dressing and transferring–spent on average $4,673 out of pocket a year on health care, whereas people who needed help with activities of daily living spent on average $6,946.

    The researchers found that one in four people with traditional Medicare spent almost 30 percent of their total income on health care costs Medicare does not cover. And, one in ten people spent just under 60 percent of their total income.

    We need to increase Social Security benefits if we want to ensure retirees can make ends meet and keep older adults from falling into poverty. Their situation is projected to get even worse as health care costs continue to grow.

    If you want Congress to expand Social Security benefits, please sign this petition.

    Here’s more from Just Care:

  • One in four insured Americans go without care, struggle to pay high deductibles

    One in four insured Americans go without care, struggle to pay high deductibles

    A new Kaiser Family Foundation report finds that fewer than half of single people have the money to pay $2,000 in deductibles and other cost-sharing requirements in most commercial health plans. In sharp contrast to wealthy Americans who can afford high deductibles and copays, high cost-sharing too often keeps working people from getting needed care. With health plan deductibles and copays rising more quickly than people’s income, more Americans are unable to afford their care.

    Commercial health plans for people under 65 typically have out-of-pocket limits of $6,850 for an individual and $13,700 for a family, far more than most Americans can afford. Only about half of people living alone have $2,500 in cash or other liquid assets. And, only about half of larger households have $5,000 in liquid assets. Slightly more than one in three households could pay $6,000 in cost sharing.

    More than forty percent of people with incomes between 150% and 400% of the federal poverty level are at risk of going without care if they get sick, without the money to pay even a $1,500 deductible ($3,000 for families), the average deductible for people with employer coverage. About sixty percent of people in this income range could not afford a $3,000 deductible ($6,000 for families), which are typical in the state exchanges.

    Access to care for working families in the US has declined in the last couple of years as health plans increasingly ration care based on people’s ability to pay. In 2015, Families USA reported that one in four Americans with non-group coverage—insured either through the health insurance exchanges or outside the health insurance exchanges—could not afford their medical care. They were unable to pay the high deductibles (which, according to the Kaiser report, averaged over $3,000 in 2016 and 2017) or out-of-pocket costs their policies require. As a result, they went without care they need.

    In 2013 and 2014, 25.2 percent of people in non-group plans went without care because they were not able to pay for it. Not surprisingly, people with incomes between 139 and 249 percent of the federal poverty level had more trouble affording care (32.3%) than people with incomes between 250 and 399 percent of poverty (22.2%).

    And almost three in ten people with deductibles of $1,500 or more (29.8%) went without medical care as compared with about two in ten people with deductibles under $1500 (19.6%). A somewhat smaller percentage of people who got their coverage through the state exchanges had deductibles of $1500 or more (42.8%) than people who got their coverage outside the exchanges (58.3%).

    According to a September 2016 CDC report, in the first quarter of 2016, 40 percent of Americans were enrolled in high-deductible health plans, up from 36.7 percent in 2015 and from 25.3 percent in 2010.

    The Families USA report found that the most common procedures people skipped were medical tests, treatments and follow-up visits (15.3%) and filling prescriptions (14.2%). Many prescription drugs have become prohibitively expensive even with insurance. Not only have prices on brand-name drugs gone up, but copays on brand-name drugs have risen signficantly, to as much as 30 percent of the cost. It’s no wonder that government drug price negotiation is a top policy issue for democrats and republicans alike.

    If you support improved Medicare for all, please sign this petition.

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