By NYCeve (Eve Gittelson)

A frightening chronicle from the land of for-profit health insurance.

How can the government mandate people purchase private health insurance, a commodity that is simply unaffordable?

Well the government can’t. Mandating that all Americans purchase private health insurance, without offering a public option, when health insurance premiums have increased 95% since 2000, while wages has gone up a pitiful 17.5% is simply an untenable non-starter.

According to Families USA, a Washington nonprofit group that advocates for affordable health care, between 2000 and 2009 the cost of a family premium provided by an employer increased 95.2 percent while median income went up just 17.5 percent. To make matters more galling, workers get fewer benefits plus higher deductibles and co-pays for the extra money.

The organization blamed the higher prices on the rising cost and increased use of medical treatments, inadequate oversight of insurance companies, lack of competition among insurers in many markets, and cost-shifting from the growing numbers of uninsured to the insured.

The higher prices have also made it more difficult for people to get insurance through their jobs. Nationally, 63 percent of U.S. companies offered health insurance to employees in 2008. That is down from 69 percent in 2000.

All this grim information is contained in a startling and urgent new report from Families USA. If there is anything macabre about this data, it’s that the American people don’t need yet another report to know how badly they’ve been sucker punched by the insurance industry for the last decade. Though Congress certainly needs to do plenty of studying. Those we elect to do our business, have shielded themselves very successfully from the harsh realities we face. And sadly, we have allowed them to accept generous and heavily taxpayer subsidized benefits, while 14,000 Americans a day lose their insurance and access to healthcare.

Now, what would happen, if we were mandated to buy private insurance and there was no public option? We’d get Romneycare the Massachusetts disaster writ large.

Massachusetts which enacted a system of universal healthcare, but failed to include a public option, has the highest premiums in the country. If you go on the web site of the Commonwealth Connector, and input a local zip code and your date of birth, you can judge for yourself whether what is being offered in Massachusetts is affordable and comprehensive. It’s neither. It’s junk insurance, with high premiums, high deductibles and high out-of-pocket costs.

Then do yourself a favor and go to the Familes USA web site and take a look at how for profit insurance premiums have skyrocketed in your state. Without a public option, there is no reform, only a mandate to buy (“think you’re insured, think again”) private insurance which won’t be there when you get sick or are injured and need it.

So what’s an American to do?

A new study cites financial concerns as a significant cause for early, medically unwise hospital departures. Because Americans fear medical bills, despite being insured, some patients choose to leave the hospital before it is safe.

Tomorrow, we’ll look at the huge rise in premiums in states of the co-op champions: Montana (Max Baucus), North Dakota (Kent Conrad), and Wyoming, the state of health care reform killer, Mike Enzi.

Yes, I know, we don’t need a public option to give the American people an alternative, because the for-profits are doing such a good job of keeping costs down and being the guardians of the nation’s health.