Dr. Parveen Arla confirms what many expected would happen to middle class working Americans. Poor, long-uninsured patients are getting free Medicaid through Obamacare and finally seeing doctors for care, but middle-class workers are forced to stay away due to soaring costs.
"It's flip-flopped" says Arla. Patients with job-based insurance plans, he says, will say: "My deductible is so high, I'm coming to the doctor as little as possible." Some are skipping checkups altogether, which puts them at much higher risk of a serious health problem that was not caught at an early stage.
This of course will cost much more in the long run than if the health problem was identified early on through regular check ups and preventative screenings. The USA article reports that "many doctors contend it's only a matter of time before the middle class begins crowding ER's. They say putting off care can be dangerous, exponentially more costly and, if it continues and spreads, can threaten the health of the nation."
Not only have deductibles skyrocketed for many middle class working families, but premiums have as well. On July 3, 2015, the NY Times reported "Health insurance companies around the country are seeking rate increases of 20 percent to 40 percent or more, saying their new customers under the Affordable Care Act turned out to be sicker than expected. A recent Commonwealth Fund survey found that 4 in 10 middle class working-age adults skipped some kind of care because of costs.
Add to skyrocketing premiums and deductibles the price of drugs or procedures not covered by plans, and for many ordinary middle class working Americans it's just too much. The story describes one middle class worker whose doctors told her she risks a stoke because she can't afford the high deductible for blood pressure pills. Another woman in Florida describes how her out-of-pocket costs of $7,500 was too high based on her $70,000 family income to deal with a debilitating neck problem.
For our family of four, our premiums 5 years ago were close to zero, with small deductibles and co-pays. Our monthly premiums now are $1,300 per month/nearly $16,000 per year cash out of pocket just to have an insurance plan that's inferior to previous plans (we've had 5 different plans in the past 5 years to save costs). Our family deductible is over $4,000, and when you throw in co-pays we will need to spend nearly $20,000 per year out of pocket before we receive the benefits of our "affordable" healthcare plan. And costs are only expected to rise in the future.
If you are a middle class worker and have not yet been affected by rising healthcare costs, and you think this can't happen to you, think again. Healthcare costs will continue to rise for middle class workers, forcing an increasing number to pay exorbitant fees for care they can't afford to use.
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