Healthcare Premiums higher than most North Dakotans paychecks

KFYR-TV
By: Anne Kelly

A new study finds most North Dakotans are earning more money than they did seven years ago. Problem is, that money, plus some, is going towards the cost of rising health care premiums.

The study was done by Families USA, a national organization for health care consumers, and it was the first analysis of how growing health care premiums compare to the rate of earnings in each of the 50 states.

The organization found in North Dakota, while median earnings rose by just over 25 percent between 2000 and 2007, the average cost for family health care coverage rose by nearly 75 percent. Individual health coverage rose nearly 50 percent.

Don Morrison with the North Dakota Center for the Public Good says the report is documentation that individuals struggling to meet the rising prices of health care aren`t alone. Morrison says the rising cost of health care is a national issue, but change needs to start in our state legislature.

"This has been brewing and building for a long long time and it basically has been ignored," says Morrison. "Our leadership both in North Dakota and Washington have pretty much been saying `Let`s deregulate,` and that`s just making it worse."

Morrison says this is not just an issue affecting those with lower incomes...middle class individuals too are feeling the pinch as families are being asked to dish out as much as eight thousand dollars just for their health care premiums