Greenbeard
Gold Member
I noted this in another thread. My insurance rates have only increased 4% each of the last two years. Prior to that, I had seen double digit increases every year as far back as I can remember. Funny that Bill Clinton mentioned this and actually had the same numbers as me in his convention speech tonight.
There's often a difference between the rise in national health expenditures, i.e. all spending on health care by everyone economy-wide, and the average private health insurance premium increase because insurance premiums are sensitive to a few different factors, including composition of the risk pools (if healthier enrollees become more likely to drop or forgo coverage, your premiums go up even if national health expenditures aren't surging).
But in this case, you're entirely on target. KFF's annual survey of employer-sponsored family insurance came out today and it seems the average premium is growing at 4% (less than half of what it was last year). Not bad!
Family Health Premiums Rise 4 Percent to Average of $15,745 in 2012, National Benchmark Employer Survey Finds - Kaiser Family Foundation