Anchorage Daily News

Health care in Alaska has become harder to afford as modest wage increases this decade have failed to keep pace with big increases in the cost of health care insurance, according to a new study by Families USA, a national organization that represents health care consumers.

As the median earnings of Alaska workers grew just 13 percent from 2000 to 2007, the cost of family health care premiums rose 74 percent, the study found. Insurance price hikes hit employers and employees alike.

For a worker, the cost of family health insurance provided through the workplace rose from $1,972 to $3,041, an increase of 54 percent.

But workers who purchased individual policies saw the cost of annual health care premiums more than double, from $371 to $756, the study found.

Even while paying higher premiums, workers received "thinner coverage" due to policies that require higher deductibles and copayments, the group reported.

"People are paying more and more and receiving less and less," said Families USA executive director Ron Pollock, addressing a teleconference of health journalists Wednesday.

With health care premiums increasing more than five times faster than median earnings for Alaska workers -- which rose from $27,373 in 2000 to $30,931 in 2007 -- more Alaskans are being priced out of health care insurance, the study concluded. A fifth of all non-elderly people in the state, 115,000 Alaskans, are currently uninsured.

"Here in Alaska we're considering health reforms of various kinds, and we really need to think about stable, public direct funding," said Larry Weiss, executive director of the Alaska Center for Public Policy, a non-profit associated with Families USA.

One recipient of such funding might be the 125 community health centers in the state, Weiss said. "Anybody can go in and get health care (at the clinics), but they are dramatically underfunded."

Families USA is a nonprofit group that receives funding through grants from charitable organizations, such as the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

Find George Bryson online at adn.com/contact/gbryson or call 257-4318.

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