Letter of the Day | Health insurance: Rising premiums, stagnant benefits

THE EDITOR, Madam:
In a recent human resources class discussion, the topic of health insurance arose, and my classmates shared their experiences  with a range of providers. Mine has been frustrating, and it points to a troubling trend: steadily rising costs paired with coverage that has not kept pace.
Over the years, my employer has switched between major health insurance providers. The pitch was “better value”–a promise that has failed to materialise. Benefits have remained stagnant while premiums have consistently and significantly increased. I currently pay $18,000 per month, or $216,000 per year, for coverage. Within that total, $17,000 per year is allocated to dental and optical benefits combined – a disproportionate share.
The deeper problem lies in the numbers. Our insurance ceiling for office visits has remained flat at $2,200 since 2020. During that same period, provider fees for those visits have risen from $2,500 to $4,000. Because the coverage limit is static, our out-of-pocket cost per visit has jumped from $300 to $1,800 – a 500 per cent increase borne entirely by the patient while the insurer’s obligation remains frozen in time.
This is not a story about one bad plan or one bad year. It is a pattern. Premiums climb, coverage ceilings stay still, and the gap is quietly transferred to the people who can least afford to absorb it. Some of my classmates’ experiences were markedly different – their dental and optical coverage was priced separately rather than bundled, which is a far more practical approach.
The question worth asking our major health insurance companies, and the regulators meant to oversee them, is simple: Are they raising profits at the expense of patients, or are they failing to provide the service they are paid for? At what point does one become indistinguishable from the other?

H. JOHNSON