Feeling the Health Insurance Squeeze

We are inundated almost daily with tales of escalating health care costs, exploding health insurance premiums, and horror stories from small businesses that have been forced to drop health insurance and families who have lost coverage.

Health care costs have long outpaced the rest of the economy. In 2008 health insurance premiums are projected to increase at more than twice the current rate of inflation. Yet most employers have simply accepted this as the cost of doing business, regardless of how unconscionable the premium increase. But what are we getting in return for these exorbitant health insurance premiums?

Recently, my 11-employee professional organization was notified that it would be hit with a 23.5-percent premium increase to retain health insurance coverage. We are not about to throw our employees overboard to swim in the state