Medical treatments are getting more costly as time passes. Patients shoulder a great amount of those expenses, even the ones who have good health insurance. A new report found that hospitalization costs in the United States in recent years have increased significantly that insured patients are being forced to pay more than $1000.
According to Emily Adrion and her colleagues' report published in the JAMA Internal Medicine, hospitalizations' total cost sharing spiked up to more than 37 percent between 2009 and 2013. From $738 in 2009, patients paid $1,013 in 2013 out of their pockets for their medical bills.
Deductibles And Coinsurance Are To Blame
Adrion said people buy health insurance coverage because it's better to have one than none at all. It's pleasing to think that your insurer will cover your expenses if you get sick or injured, but perhaps insurance companies don't shoulder your medical costs as much as you assume.
The rising out-of-pocket hospitalization costs are being blamed on growing deductibles and coinsurance. The latter is a percentage or share of care costs, while deductibles are the expenses the insured must pay before an insurance company will pay a claim, Reuters wrote.
The report published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that deductibles increased from an average of $145 in 2009 to $270 in 2013. Coinsurance expanded from $518 in 2009 to $688 in 2013.
The Purpose Of Health Insurance Becomes Pointless
Dr. Mitchell Katz, deputy editor of the journal, said the increasing costs of coinsurance and deductibles undermine the purpose of a health insurance. Katz said asking the insured to pay a percentage of a medical cost is acceptable if expensive drugs are involved or if certain medical procedures aren't required or can be substituted with something less pricey. But the same cannot be said if a patient is in emergency and requires immediate health care, NBC News reported.
According to Katz, it appears that "out-of-pocket costs are being used so that the premiums of health insurance plans are lower," the news outlet further reported. Adrion's team looked at health care data covered by three huge insurance companies: Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare.
The most costly plans are those that people afforded as individuals and are only low premiums. The plans are deemed as low coverage and are designed to provide care only to patients with grave illnesses. The 2010 Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, previously forced health insurance companies to ditch a number of expensive and low coverage hospitalization plans.
