Increase Government Worker Health Benefits Responsible For Growth In US Health Spending Over Past Decades

From John Goodman's Health Policy Blog, "Government Workers’ Health Benefits Cost 40 Percent More Than Private Workers" by John R. Graham:

Last year, public-sector health benefits cost $8,551 per employee while private-sector coverage cost only $6,040.

That 40 percent premium for a public-sector worker is not captured by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Indeed, because the Foundation does not survey federal-government employees, it does not even report those who might be the highest cost. Even if the latter include the military, the premium for government benefits is remarkably high.

When people complain about the cost of private coverage, they likely don’t know that many of the guilty parties are government employees (including the ones who would be involved in a so-called “single payer”, government monopoly, health system).

The reports do not publish the number of public-sector workers versus private-sector workers. If they did, simple arithmetic would likely show that the rapid increase in health spending over the decades is largely explained by growth in public-sector health benefits, not private-sector ones. [Emphasis added.]