The Effects of Rising Health Care Costs

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Health care costs, including costs for long-term services and supports, are a growing burden for middle-class families across all age groups. Wages have not kept up with increases in health care costs, and more middle-class families are struggling to cope with higher health insurance premiums and higher out-of-pocket expenses when they have an illness. Rising health care costs are crowding out other important priorities for workers, such as saving for their own retirement or for their children’s college education.

Employers have responded to higher health care costs by scaling back wage increases, shifting cost increases to their employees, or changing the type of insurance they offer. If these trends continue, many people who had been middle-class throughout their working years will be at risk of not having enough financial resources to maintain a middle-class lifestyle during their retirement years. Increased out-of-pocket costs to Medicare beneficiaries and the often catastrophic costs of long-term services and supports are major threats to middle-class security for retirees and family members, who often end up in caregiving roles.

Read More at: 

http://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/research/
public_policy_institute/security/
2013/impact-of-rising-healthcare-costs-AARP-ppi-sec.pdf