More and more middle class Americans may be facing the prospect of being uninsured according to a study released Tuesday by the Center for Studying Health System Change, a non-partisan research group. The report was published in the journal 'Health Affairs.'
The cost of health care for privately insured Americans went up by 8.2 percent according to the study. The problem: that's almost four times the increase in the average U.S. worker's wages in the same time period.
According to Paul Ginsburg, the president of the center and a co-author of the study, the trend is not a good one. 'This is very worrisome to me,' Ginsburg told the 'Washington Post.' 'If the cost trend stays at the level it is today -- well above the trend of earnings -- this could lead to a substantial decline in the [percentage of] people with insurance.'
In 2003, approximately 45 million Americans were without health insurance. That is roughly 15 percent of the population of the U.S. Ginsburg contends that the figure would be even higher if not for the recent expansion of Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program, both of which are government sponsored.
In addition, as health care costs have risen and continue to rise, employers provide less coverage for their employees or stop providing coverage at all.
'Low-income people got priced out of private insurance a long time ago,' Ginsburg explained. 'Now it's working into the middle class.'
It remains to be seen how much longer the current trend will continue. Health care costs continue to rise and the ability of the average American to afford them continue to diminish.
