health insurance deductibles = functionally uninsured
recent analyses have found that a very large number of employed Americans are in desperate financial straits and the dramatically increasing deductibles from their employer-sponsored health insurance has made them functionally uninsured. These reports have somewhat different numbers from their surveys, but the gist is pretty clear…. 1 . the LA Times has been doing an extensive story on the issue of high deductible health plans, that they effectively deny health care access to large groups of people, replete with poignant individual stories (see https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-health-insurance-medical-bills-20190502-story.html ). some points: --In the past 12 years, annual deductibles in job-based health plans have quadrupled and now average more than $1300 a year -- the average deductible was $379 in 2006 adjusted for inflation, $1350 in 2018 -- 4 in 10 workers have at least $1500 deduct...