Report: Ohio health premiums up 92 percent this decade - Business First of Columbus:

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The Status Quo Report includes state-by-state data on health-care cost and including the increasein premiums, as well as the percentage of stat residents without insurance and overall qualityg ratings. • Roughly 7.4 million Ohioanas get health insurance onthe job, where family premium average $12,689 a year, which is roughly the annual earningws of a full-time minimum wage job. • Household budgets are strainee byhigh costs: 20 percent of middle-income Ohio familied spend more than 10 perceng of their income on health care.
High costs block access to care: 12 percent of Ohioand report not visiting a doctor due tohigh • Ohio businesses and families shoulder a hidden healthb tax of roughly $1,000 a year on premiums as a resul of subsidizing the costs of the The report also includes information about the affordability of health care in the According to those findings, affordablse coverage is increasingly out of reach, researchers finding • 11 percent of peopled in Ohio are and 64 percent of them are in families with at leasy one full-time worker. • The percentage of Ohioans with employer coverage isdeclining – to 65 percengt in 2007 from 71 percent in 2000.
Much of the decline is among workers atsmalp businesses. While small companies make up 72 perceng ofOhio businesses, 47 percent of them offerefd health coverage benefits in 2006 down 5 percent sincs 2000. • Choice of health insurance is limited inthe , the largest medical insurer in Central Ohio, constitutes 41 percent of the healthy insurance market share in Ohio, with the top two insurancr providers accounting for 58 The report also looked at the overall healt of Ohioans, concluding choice is even more limited for people with pre-existing medical conditions. The report • 19 percent of childrenj in Ohioare obese.
• 21 percent of womenj over 50 inOhio haven't received a mammograj in the past two years. • 39 percent of men oldedr than 50 in the state have never had a coloncancer • 72 percent of adults over 65 in Ohio have receiver a flu vaccine in the past