Health Care Costs Crippling Middle Class

Middle class savings are getting bullied by health care costs.  And it will get much worse.  But...

Debbie Wasserman Schultz says America is roaring back to life.

USA Today reports how Obamacare costs are sticking it to the middle class.

And Debbie Wasserman Schultz says America is roaring back to life.

Billionaires have never been richer than under the current Democrat President - and income disparity never greater between the rich and poor... 

And Debbie Wasserman Schultz says America is roaring back to life.

Who is this Debbie?  Oh, she is a liberal Democrat Congresswoman.

Maybe she is roaring back to life.  Has the next campaign already started?

(See the links below to "Dilemma over deductibles: Costs crippling middle class" and "America is Roaring Back to Life.")  PB
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From USA Today online:

Physician Praveen Arla is witnessing a reversal of health care fortunes: Poor, long-uninsured patients are getting Medicaid through Obamacare and finally coming to his office for care.

But middle-class workers are increasingly staying away.

"It's flip-flopped," says Arla, who helps his father run a family practice in Hillview, Ky.

Patients with job-based plans, he says, will say: " 'My deductible is so high. I'm trying to come to the doctor as little as possible. … What is the minimum I can get done?' They're really worried about cost."

...health insurance now often requires workers to pay so much out-of-pocket that many feel they must skip doctor visits, put off medical procedures, avoid filling prescriptions and ration pills — much as the uninsured have done.

A recent Commonwealth Fund survey found that four in 10 working-age adults skipped some kind of care because of the cost, and other surveys have found much the same...

Meanwhile the size of the average deductible more than doubled in eight years, from $584 to $1,217 for individual coverage.

Add to this co-pays, co-insurance and the price of drugs or procedures not covered by plans — and it's all too much for many Americans...


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Link: http://www.usatoday.com/longform/news/nation/2015/01/01/middle-class-workers-struggle-to-pay-for-care-despite-insurance/19841235/

Link to Debbie Wasserman Schultz writing at CNN: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/01/opinion/wasserman-schultz-america-roaring-back-to-life/index.html