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January 10, 2006
The Sickly State of Small Business Health Care
Posted by Carole Matthews at 11:54 AM
Conditions just keep getting worse for employer sponsored health care. While many large companies are managing to foot the bill, small businesses are struggling to afford what in many employees' minds is a must-have benefit. A September 2005 survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust notes the steady decline in businesses offering health benefits since 2000, as the rising cost has outpaced inflation year after year. More recently, in a January 9, 2006, article (membership required), the Society for Resource Management (SHRM) spoke to a number of experts who predicted the employer-sponsored health care system will eventually collapse. Furthermore, the article notes that small employers will be forced to push the cost onto employees, and employer programs at the low-end of the wage scale will dwindle away.
To cover workers, state-run programs, such as the controversial program proposed by the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and consumer directed health plans, such as health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) and health savings accounts (HSAs), are trying to fill the need, though not always adequately. Individual insurance plans are cropping up, too, as options for employers who want to help, but just can afford to sponsor a plan. And the single-payer government system is again on the table. The SHRM story notes that experts have mixed reviews on its ability to adequately replace an employer-sponsored system, as some say the public monies just aren't there to support it.
So what is the solution? Amidst all of them, it's hard to find one approach that can effectively replace what many workers have come to view as a natural part of their working lives. At the very least, these options illustrate a growing commitment to finding a solution, and more innovative thinking on tackling the issue. What are your suggestions for handling the rising costs?
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There is only one healthcare program that can really help small (and large) businesses. It is a national single payer healthcare plan that will cut out the excessive costs of having 1,500 insurance companies and HMO's requiring massive administration and paper-work.
WE NEED A SYSTEM THAT PROVIDES FOR ONLY ONE PAYER, either Medicare or another federal entity that is free from partisan politics.
It must continue to provide for private healthcare, increase the ability to choose among private doctors, adequate support for all of the institutions we need including hospitals, clinics, ever more complex technical equipment, negotiations with the drug companies for a fair price, an end to expenditure of public money for advertising, and provide all of the healthcare benefits we need, including dental and optical, mental healthcare, choice of primary and specialty care givers, long term care, drug and alcohol treatment, and prescription drugs for all who need them.
It must not continue to depend on one's employment status. All employers would participate in it as would everyone else in the society. The cost to employers would be much less than our current system.
THERE IS SUCH A PLAN IN CONGRESS: H.R. 676. The United States Universal Healthcare Plan
Current figures show that under a single-payer system, an employer would spend less than $100 per month per employee for this greatly expanded healthcare benefit. Employees making $30,000 or more would spend about $100 a month of their income for a family of three. Business owners and employees are already spending more than that on out-of-pocket costs, Workers' Comp, and Medicaid, all of which would be rolled into this single payer plan.
For more information see the website www.healthcare-now.org and join us in the effort to get a great healthcare system for everybody in our country soon. It will help our economy tremendously, free up a lot of money that is now being wasted on the excess administrative costs of 1,500 corporate payers, and make possible a savings of hundreds of billions of dollars that people can spend on other products.
Marilyn Clement, National Coordinator, Healthcare-NOW, 212-475-8350
Yes, Marilyn, we can see your point here. Medicare, that bastian of non-partisan politics, has been SO VERY SUCCESSFUL in providing care in the USA. And of course our seniors, who are cared for under a "universal" plan are really doing well in 2006. The law is clear, and people are certainly getting the excellent care they deserve in these wonderfully cost effective, government-run systems.
And how will Federally funded healthcare help the economy? It doesn't seem to have helped much in the case of Medicare. Instead of 1500 profitable insurance companies, employing hundreds of thousand of Americans, and returning dividends to hundreds of thousands of Americans; we would have one massive bureaocracy fighting over tax dollars annually. Maybe we could shut down the Federal Government even more often as the arguing over tax dollars escalates!
Oh, and try to get an MRI in Canada, where they have a single payer plan. My son worked there last year. They told him it would be eleven months before he could get the MRI necessary to see if his head injury was causing the blind-spots in his vision. I wonder if the slow bleed we found when he came home (and we paid for the care he needed); would have killed him in eleven months? What do you think? If that were your son how would you handle it? Universal Healthcare and a dead son or our system and a living one?
HR 676 is a narrow-minded attempt to address a hugely complex problems. It is another boon-doggle that will further confuse American healthcare and allow a wider casm between the "Haves" and the "HaveNots".
Healthcare is a rationed commodity, much like all valuable things. YOU, The Consumer, must decide where your priorities are and then pay the cost for the things you want to have for yourself and your family.
There is an old saying: "There is NO Free Lunch". If you want top quality healthcare, it is going to cost you something.
It's your choice how to spend your money, your life and your resources. And, it is NOT MY responsibility to see that YOU get top quality healthcare, no matter what the reason is that you can't afford it.
Out of kindness and compasion I may OFFER to help you when you get into a bind. But that's called charity - NOT Universal Health.
I don't want to be required to subsidize your health care any more that you want to subsidize my dinner and entertainment tonight!
Both are choices that each American is allowed to make and if I want to afford the MRI my son needs, maybe I should skip dinner and that show tonight, and make sure to be at work on time in the morning so that I have a job that helps with my healthcare costs in any number of ways.
Luckily it IS my CHOICE because I DON'T live in a single payer system!
The Wall Street Journal had a good article recently that you all should read. Keep Govt. out of healthcare...unless you want an entity like FEMA deciding your healthcare.
this site has the article for free.
www.healthdecisions.org
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