Health insurance doesn't guarantee financial security

Chris Rosenblum

Not having health insurance can leave anyone sick with worry.

But many Pennsylvanians are finding coverage doesn’t necessarily provide financial security.

A new study by Families USA, a national organization for health care consumers, says about 2.2 million Pennsylvanians younger than 65 will spend more than 10 percent of their pretax income on health care in 2008.

The kicker: About 87 percent of them have health insurance.

Worse, about 600,000 of those state residents — more than four out of five of whom are insured — will exceed a quarter of their pretax income for health care. Since 2000, that group has grown by 110,000 people.

Rising premiums are partly to blame, USA Families says, as well as economic pressures on businesses, which force some to trim benefit packages or increase the employee share of premiums.

That means higher out-of-pocket expenses for many working families. According to USA Families, half of state residents who will spend more than a tenth of their income on health care earn between $30,000 and $75,000 annually before taxes.

“The bottom line is the health care that people used to take for granted is increasingly becoming unaffordable,” said Ron Pollack, executive director for Families USA.

About 21 percent of state residents younger than 65 spend more than a tenth of their incomes on health care. The national average is about 23 percent, Pollack said.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., called the study’s findings “stunning” and said the White House and Congress must agree on reforms to the health care system to help struggling families and businesses.

“We’ve got to tackle this problem,” Casey said. “The next president, whoever that is, will ignore this at (his or her) own peril.”