What prosperity?

Byline: The Register-Guard

Reports of a robust economy and record-setting stock prices are being met with uneasy silence among middle-class Oregonians, largely because rising health care costs are eating up income gains.

With many economic indicators headed in the right direction, incumbent politicians expected most voters would be thrilled. Instead, the anxiety is tangible enough to cut with a scalpel.

An analysis of Census data by the Oregon Center for Public Policy found that a typical Oregon household has actually lost income in inflation-adjusted dollars over the past six years. With median household income now at $43,262, an average Oregon family has lost $4,638 since 2000.

A significant reason for the income erosion is the cost shift of higher health insurance costs from employers to workers. What began as a financial pinch five years ago has become a painful pocketbook squeeze.

The annual Health Confidence Survey, released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute, found that 52 percent of those surveyed nationwide were dissatisfied with health insurance costs, a significant jump from the 33 percent dissatisfaction rate last year. Among those surveyed, almost 60 percent said premiums, deductibles and co-pays in their health plan had gone up in the last year.

A common response has been to reduce savings and contributions to retirement accounts, two corner- stones of family financial security. Among the group reporting higher health plan costs, more than half said they were saving less, and 36 percent reported reductions in their 401(k) contributions. Another 28 percent said the burden of higher premiums and co-pays was even causing problems paying for necessities such as food and utility bills.

Efforts to slow the double-digit annual increases in health insurance premiums for employer-provided coverage have achieved some success, but much has come at the expense of worker wages and salaries. Even though health insurance premiums rose this year at the lowest rate since 2000, they still climbed at double the rate of increase in workers' earnings, according to research from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Frustration with stagnant wages is reflected in recent surveys that show 45 percent of Americans believe the economy is getting worse, in spite of statistical measures indicating it is thriving. Clearly, the strategy of shifting the burden of higher health insurance costs to workers has almost run its course.

What is it going to take for real health care reform to become the top domestic policy priority of every elected state and federal official? Will 95 percent of Americans have to report economic hardship - while corporations are making record profits and the government is spending $245 million a day on the Iraq war - before affordable health care for all Americans becomes important enough to address?