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The cost of staying healthy is climbing. The cost of getting sick is even worse.
Prescription drug costs are up. So is the amount of money people spend in urgent care -- and that's affordable compared with an emergency room visit. Testing, diagnostics, office visits, the little extras you don't think about until the bill shows up in the mail. They all add up.
It's not surprising. Everything is more expensive these days. And people are more and more concerned.
According to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker, healthcare costs are making people worry a lot, more than food, housing, utilities and gas. That poll was done in January, long before people understood how much health insurance premiums were going up.
Nationwide, the proposed median increase for Affordable Care Act insurance providers is 14%. That's steep. But it's worse in Pennsylvania, where insurers are seeking an average of 17.1%.
That's too much for health advocacy groups, who are petitioning the Pennsylvania Insurance Department for a freeze on rates.
The reason is obvious. Healthy people need health care to stay healthy. Sick people need it to get well. In the middle are people with conditions that need management to avoid slipping into the sick category.
Higher costs force people to forgo health insurance, which snowballs into forgoing treatment until it cannot be ignored. That almost always means replacing a small bill with a much larger one.
This may save an insurance company money if a customer who would otherwise delay an office visit until it becomes a hospital stay opts to forgo coverage. But it doesn't save money for health systems or the state.
Is a freeze the most effective way to address it?
Perhaps this year, it is. The 17.1% in requested increases follows an average of 21.5% last year. That's a staggering climb over two years.
It's important to acknowledge that, while it is easy to paint insurance companies as the bad guys, they play a critical role in reimbursing medical providers.
The department should consider the people paying the premiums, but also how those premiums affect the entire healthcare ecosystem. Premiums ripple throughout the healthcare system. They influence whether hospitals keep maternity wards open, whether ambulance services remain viable, how many nurses work a shift and how quickly patients receive test results.
None of these things happens in a vacuum. They are interwoven and interdependent. But that dependence is why freezing might be the ask but cooling could be the need.
Ideally, the department would see the need of the people and consider the overall impact. Denying an increase could mean fewer plans available for people dependent on ACA coverage in the future, which would be just as detrimental.
Perhaps freezing is the right answer this year. Perhaps it isn't. But cooling the pressure on Pennsylvania families while preserving the care they depend on should be the goal. The Pennsylvania Insurance Department's job is not to choose patients over providers or consumers over insurers. It is to recognize that all of them rise and fall together.
-- Pittsburgh Tribune-Review