2012 Milliman Medical Index

In a report about the cost of health care (the 2012 Milliman Medical Index, see here), there is the following (very interesting graph).

Uwe Reinhart (see here) has a post about the report in which he says:

"The virtue of this index lies in its inclusion of out-of-pocket spending in total health spending. Just tracking premiums for employment-based health can be misleading, if employers shift more and more of the cost of health care out of their benefit package into deductibles or coinsurance paid by employees, exclude certain benefits altogether or otherwise limit coverage."

"For 2012, the nationwide average of the total health spending for a typical family of four was estimated by Milliman to be $20,728. On a regional basis, that average varies from a low of $18,365 in Phoenix to $24,965 in Miami."

Reinhart has the following chart in his post:

He makes the following (important) observation:

"Americans are fond of the idea that individuals and families should be self-reliant. But a question confronting the American public and their political representatives is how they imagine households with money income of, say, $30,000 to $50,000 will tolerate the ever-larger bites the health care Pacman seeks to take out of their budgets."