Fighting High Deductible, High Co-Pay Insurance

Overview

Patients today are paying for a larger and larger share of their health care.  Not only is it difficult for many people to acquire health insurance, but even those with coverage are seeing costs rise.  At a time when patients and their families are already overwhelmed by the financial, emotional, and time demands of interacting with today's healthcare system, a movement is underway to make the situation even worse.  Insurers and corporations are sneakily shifting the financial burden onto everyday Americans by driving patients into high deductible, high co-pay plans that offer little protection when a person actually needs medical care.  Half of all bankruptcies are now due to medical problems, and in most of these cases, the person declaring bankruptcy had medical insurance.  This trend of burden-shifting has been promoted under the misleading label of "consumer-directed health care."  Make no mistake: these plans benefit influential insurers and payers, at a high price to actual consumers.  Their momentum is growing.  The new Medicare drug plan and "health savings accounts" are two prominent examples of this effort to shift healthcare costs to patients-and both are contributing to the dissolution of what it even means to be insured.  The United States may be approaching a time when the word "insured" is nothing but an empty shell, useful for political tabulations but meaningless for patients.  In contrast, the NPA seeks to establish true patient-driven health care by resisting high-deductible health plan proposals and prioritizing accessible, high quality health care for all people.

Our Position on HSAs

Check back here soon for new links to our Issue Brief on High-Deductible insurance, recent news on insurance, and ways to become involved in this issue.