Crisis looms in health insurance

January 1, 2006

Published on: 01/02/06

For years, demographers have predicted an explosion in demand for

health care services as the baby boom generation reaches the point in

life where complications from high blood pressure, diabetes,

hypertension and other disorders begin to take their toll.

But what might be more frightening for the nation's health is that a

lot of these same boomers will face expensive health care needs

without adequate insurance coverage.

In its annual statistical report to the nation, the Centers for

Disease Control and Prevention last month noted that many people

between 55 and 65 years of age are without adequate health insurance

coverage. Unless they have income well below the poverty level, or

have a major disability that qualifies them for Medicaid, they have

to wait until age 65 to be covered by Medicare.

With more and more Americans opting for early retirement in their 50s

or early 60s, some are left with no insurance at all while others

sign up for individual plans with marginal benefits. Retirement

health benefits provided by former employers are also being

eliminated or scaled back considerably, the CDC said. And because

women are three times more likely to be widowed than men during these

years, women are often left without coverage when their spouses die.

The baby boom generation is going into the years when heart attack,

stroke and complications from diabetes are common among American

adults. The national survey found that people born in the 1930s were

much less likely to have complications in middle age from these

common conditions than those born in the 1940s and later. The one

bright spot in that outlook was in the area of cholesterol control.

Baby boomers' widespread use of lipid-lowering drugs has helped

reduce their risk of coronary artery disease — an improvement over

the generation before them, the CDC said.

But those drugs, and others that can be taken to control high blood

pressure and diabetes, for instance, often come at substantial cost.

Without adequate insurance, many Americans may not be able to afford

them. And if you have to give up adequate health coverage when you

retire, many Americans might postpone their decision to do so.

That fact alone should force a serious examination of whether an

employment-based insurance system is the best prescription for the

nation's health.

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