Study - Health insurance premiums on the rise, not worker wages

Working families' health care insurance premiums in Arizona rose twice as much as their median earnings in the past six years, according to a study by a Washington D.C.-based consumer health organization.

The study by Families USA documented changes on a state-specific basis. In Arizona, it showed that from 2000 to 2006, annual premiums rose 56.6 percent, from $6,767 to $10,598, while the median earnings of Arizona workers increased from $22,961 to $27,915, or 21.6 percent.

"Arizona families have been hit hard in the pocketbooks due to skyrocketing health costs and stagnant wages," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, in a release.

For working families in Yuma County, "What that means is no access to health care," said Emma Torres of the advocacy group Campesinos Sin Fronteras, which helps low-income families in Somerton and San Luis, Ariz.

"When there are studies like that, it throws reality in our face," Torres said. "That is why we keep advocating for health care for the indigent.

Torres said studies have shown that Hispanic people are among the most uninsured in the country.

Torres said that besides high unemployment, only about 30 percent of employers in Arizona offer some type of health insurance. In fact, some families have one or both members working two jobs, which throws them into a category of making too much to qualify for public health access but still too little to afford insurance. Usually the jobs are both part-time and not eligible for employer matched programs.

"They fall in the cracks," Torres said. "They make too much to qualify for (public health access) but are too poor to get insurance."

What these families do is either go to Mexico for primary care or try not to get sick. That's where Torres' office comes in. The organization offers public health education and information about homemade remedies, especially at a time when climate change is causing illnesses in the region, Torres said.

"These are our working families, so they need to be healthy," she said.

Key findings in the report provided data concerning premiums for family health coverage and individual coverage. Other key points in the same time period include:

Employer portions of annual premiums rose from $4,791 to $7,938, or 65.7 percent for family health coverage.

Worker portions of annual premiums rose from $1,976 to $2,660, or 34.6 percent for family health coverage.

For individual health coverage, employer portion of annual premiums rose from $2,075 to $3,274, an For individual health coverage, the worker's portion of annual premiums rose from $419 to $778, an increase of 85.7 percent.

Travis Gregory, president of the Southwest Arizona Human Resource Association and a human resources consultant for Yuma Regional Medical Center, said this is a topic that frequently comes up in the state. Gregory said reasons premiums are rising include medical lawsuits and costs that hospitals incur for uninsured patients.

But Gregory said other recent studies have shown premiums are stabilizing.

Families are "shopping around" for employers who offer the best benefits. Sometimes, in households with two working partners, one will hold a job merely because of health benefits.

For employers, they have to look for a way to even out the costs. What they do is either increase the employee contributions to the plan, or "thin out" coverage plans -- that is, offer choices with lower-coverage plans.

"Another is to do nothing and have the organization itself absorb the cost," Gregory said, adding that employers often think twice about increasing costs to their employees' benefits.

"If you're trying to hang on to employees, cutting benefits is not the way to go," he said.