The population in group health
private insurance is becoming older and wealthier at a rate greater than the population
overall, which could add pressure to an already strained health insurance system,
according to a Yale School of Public Health study.
This trend makes it harder for health insurers to pool risks
since fewer younger people with lower health costs are covered by these employment-based
plans, according to Patricia Keenan, Ph.D., lead author of the article in Health
Affairs and assistant professor at the Yale School of Public Health.
“Older, more affluent people are more likely to keep their
employer-based coverage as premiums rise while others increasingly get public
coverage or go without altogether,” said Keenan. “Population aging
combined with declines from rising premiums could further destabilize the employment-based
health coverage system.”
She said private coverage has been in a slow decline since the
late 1980s and younger and lower-income groups have disproportionately lost
coverage. Keenan said even if the population with employment-based coverage
remains quite healthy, costs of coverage could increase as the average age of
people with group coverage rises.
Although the main driver of rising premium costs is ongoing
changes in medical technology, Keenan said, there is the possibility that population
aging will interact with ongoing differential declines in group coverage to
add to ongoing increases in premium costs.
“In contrast to substantial policy attention to the implications
of population aging for Medicare and Social Security, the potential consequences
of population aging for group health insurance have received little consideration,”
she said. “Well before we see the effects of baby boomers’ retirement
on Medicare and Social Security financing, population aging combined with rising
premiums could place more pressure on an already strained employment-based health
insurance system.”
Citation: Health Affairs 25: 1-10, 2006. http://publichealth.yale.edu
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