Curing what ails ya

Another failure on the the domestic front by President Bush:

Health insurance costs posted their fourth straight year of double-digit increases in 2004, pushing the total price tag on the most popular family coverage plans past $10,000 for the first time, according to a national study released Thursday.

Premiums for employer-sponsored plans rose 11.2 percent, according to an annual survey of employers conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET). That marked a slight slowdown from the previous year, when premiums escalated 13.9 percent.

Still over the past four years, health insurance costs have leaped 59 percent -- about five times faster than both wage growth and inflation.

With such sharp increases, the survey found, fewer workers have coverage -- 61 percent this year, compared to 65 percent in 2001. For workers at small businesses, only half are covered, down from 58 percent in 2001. That means 5 million fewer jobs providing health coverage, the study estimated -- partly because fewer small-business employers can afford to offer it.

"Health insurance is becoming unaffordable in our country, especially for small employers," said Drew Altman, president of the California-based Kaiser Family Foundation.

It's a shame that it had to take George Bush four years of double-digit increases to finally try and tackle this issue.

Those people who have managed to keep their health care so far are the one who should be worried about things like this, and the Kerry campaign needs to sell these people on his ideas to keep costs down and more Americans covered. Maybe even frame it as another way to save taxpayers money because less of it will have to go to healthcare under his term. Or is that too much Bush type rhetoric?