Michigan Group Health Insurance Premiums Increase At Highest Rate In The Nation

Michigan Group Health Insurance Premiums Increase At Highest Rate In The Nation in Group Health Insurance

It’s as if Michigan workers didn’t have enough to worry about…

Residents of Michigan have been battling a sluggish state economy for a few years now. Auto workers are trying to dodge layoffs and forced early retirements, and young college graduates are struggling to find their first jobs.

Now, a new report from Families USA, a health care research group, found that group health insurance rates were increasing more than wages at the fastest rate in the nation.

Health insurance rates for employer-sponsored plans went up by 78.2 percent from 2000 to 2007, yet wages only increased by 4.6 percent in the same period.

Workers in Michigan are also now paying proportionately more than their employers, wrote an article in the Detroit Free Press.

From 2000 to 2007, the amount employers paid for health insurance went up by 63.3 percent.  But in the same time period, the amount workers paid for coverage increased by a whopping 170.6 percent, according to the Free Press article.

“[T]he whole system is being stretched. [This report is] another cause to look at the impending collapse of the whole health care system,” said State Representative John Dingell.

So what kind of health insurance reform will residents of Michigan choose?

It seems as if they have already made their decision.

Early on, Michigan was considered a battleground state in this election. But Republican Senator John McCain announced yesterday he is pulling his campaign from the state, after a trend of decreasing numbers in the polls over the past couple weeks.

That all but cedes the Wolverine State to Democratic Senator Barack Obama.

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