This Just In ...
The Hidden Costs of Health Care
Health care isn't cheap. Every year, you and your employees pay health care premiums, deductibles, drug costs and medical bills not covered by insurance.
But wait, there’s more!
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' annual report on health care spending reveals that Americans also are covering other, hidden costs:
- Taxpayers pay $1.7 trillion in state and federal taxes to cover Medicaid and Medicare costs.
- The $1 trillion in coverage you and other employers provide employees is not "free" to the employees. Employees might think of it that way, but the health insurance benefits you provide are a tradeoff to larger salaries, so employees foot the bill for the entire $1 trillion.
- Out-of-pocket spending on dental services is more than 40 percent of total health care spending.
- Consumers pay almost all the costs for items not covered by insurance, such as over-the-counter medications and health aids.
One service consumers usually don't pay much for is hospital care. Hospital costs generally are covered by insurance. For example, consumers spent almost nothing out of pocket for hospital care in 2017, which cost $1.15 trillion. Instead, they paid for about 10 percent of their nearly $700 billion just in doctors' bills.
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