Most major actuarial firms project health insurance premiums will rise another 10 percent in 2001 . That estimate does not include the cost of additional lawsuits and mandates Congress may enact. Some 53 percent of small businesses who do not offer health benefits cite cost as the main reason. Fourteen percent of small businesses said they would have to drop their employees' health benefits if costs rose 10 percent, while 46 percent said they would have to change coverage. One-fifth of the uninsured decline coverage their employers do offer because it is still too expensive.
Democrats are determined to make the situation worse.
If we have a big sweep for the Democrats in the House and the Senate, we'll get single payer. That may serve the interests of bureaucrats and trial lawyers, but it can hardly be called patient protection.