By John Lyon
Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Health insurance premiums for working Arkansas families  increased 5.7 times faster than wages between 2000 and 2007, according to a new study by a group pushing for a national public health insurance plan.

The study by Washington, D.C.-based Health Care for America Now! cites government statistics to support the argument that without significant reform, health insurance will soon be out of reach for most Americans.

The report’s statistics on Arkansas are “startling,” said Neil Sealy, chief organizer for the community activist group Arkansas ACORN, at a news conference Tuesday.

“It’s an important study that’s come out,” Sealy said. “There’s a moral issue. Our working people who are working hard, playing by the rules, trying to earn a living for their family — the cost of health insurance just is outpacing their wages.”

According to the study:

—The average cost of family health coverage in Arkansas increased from $6,355 to $10,534, or 66 percent, between 2000 and 2007. During the same period, the median earnings of Arkansas workers increased from $20,328 to $22,692, or 12 percent.

—The cost of family health care coverage in Arkansas equaled 27 percent of the median family income in 2007 and would grow to 48 percent by 2016 without reform.

—The full cost of employer-sponsored health insurance in Arkansas is projected to grow at 8.1 percent annually, compared with a 1.4 percent projected annual increase nationally.

—The average Arkansas employer’s portion of family health coverage rose 56 percent between 2000 and 2007, while the average worker’s portion rose 91 percent.

—About 260,000 working non-elderly adults in Arkansas do not have health insurance.

—In Arkansas in 2008 there were 13,489 non-business bankruptcies. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently estimated that 62 percent of bankruptcies nationwide are directly related to medical bills.

Sealy said at least nine Arkansans representing groups affiliated with Health Care for America Now! will be in Washington, D.C., Wednesday and Thursday to take part in rallies and meet with members of Arkansas’ congressional delegation.

Among other things, the group will urge U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., to support a national public health plan. Lincoln, told reporters last week that she preferred creating health care co-ops that would be a back-up for the private insurance industry, rather than creating a public plan with a government-run provider.

“It won’t have the power to negotiate cost savings, for one thing, and it won’t necessarily provide a standardized set of benefits,” Sealy said of the co-op idea.

As a member of the Senate Finance Committee, Lincoln will be a key player in fashioning the health care overhaul that President Obama has pushed. She said Tuesday she believes co-ops could be a start toward phasing in a national plan.

“Start with the states, incentivize it there, and then grow it into a federal program,” she said, adding that she is open to any plan that works.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius released a separate report Tuesday on the effect that increases in the “hidden costs of health care” — deductibles, co-payments and out-of-pocket expenses — are having on Americans’ ability to afford health insurance.

“It doesn’t matter if you have insurance or not: when Americans go to the hospital or the doctor’s office, they are paying more and getting less,”  Sebelius said in a news release.

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Reporter Zack Stovall contributed to this report.

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One the Net:
www.HealthCareforAmericaNow.org/Unaffordable
www.HealthReform.gov