About 50 years ago, health insurance started to be an attractive incentive offered by employers to attract and keep good employees. Overall, group plans tended to be inexpensive for employers, with employees contributing a small amount of money or none at all to secure health insurance for themselves and their families.
It was more expensive for individuals to pay for non-group policies, but coverage was fairly affordable. Then medical costs started to rise, people started to live longer and the medical profession became adept at curing various diseases and saving and prolonging the lives of people with serious injuries and life-threatening illnesses. Health care and insurance prices started rising much more quickly than annual incomes and premiums began taxing both employers, who were paying the lion’s share of premiums, and for employees, to whom businesses often passed on costs through larger deductibles, greater out of pocket expenses and higher premiums.
According to a recent report by the MSNBC News Service, 41 percent of Americans whose income ranges from moderate to middle had no health insurance for at least part of 2005. In 2001, that number was much lower