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Stop enough is enough!! Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums increased an average of 11.2% in 2004 -- less than last year's 13.9% increase, but this is still the fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth, according to the 2004 Annual Employer Health Benefits Survey released today by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust (HRET). Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose at about five times the rate of both inflation (2.3%) and workers' earnings (2.2%). This year, premiums reached an average of $9,950 annually for family coverage ($829 per month) and $3,695 ($308 per month) for single coverage, according to the new survey. In 2004, family premiums for PPOs, which cover most workers, rose to $10,217 annually ($851 per month), up significantly from $9,317 annually ($776 per month) in 2003. Since 2001, premiums for family coverage have risen 59%. What’s Wrong With Employer-Based Health Care In order for an employee to gain access to health insurance through his or her job, three conditions have to be met: The Company Must Offer Insurance The Worker has to be Eligible The Worker has to be able to afford the insurance he or she is eligible for. This creates a multi-tier system. Employers are not sensitive enough to employee’s needs. Right now they should be working to reform the health care system, instead they are reducing their cost by eliminating health care coverage altogether or by making their employees pay more of the costs. Unions are bargaining for health care coverage, where their primary concern should be for worker’s rights, working conditions, and a living wage (which is a big problem in this country). Small Business that employs over 50 percent of the work force is getting hit the hardest and they are rapidly dropping coverage. New increases in employer-based health care coverage have made it almost impossible for American companies to compete on a global market. Portability—Job to Job—State to State—Country to Country Lose your job and there is a good possibility that you will lose your health care coverage. Lose your health care coverage and it will be difficult in the present health care system to get covered with the same comprehensiveness or even get covered at all. Lose hour health care coverage for a prolonged period of time and you may go without a primary doctor, seek care in an expensive and crowded emergency room, or go without needed medicine. New increases in employer costs have invented: co-pays, deductibles, and defined contributions. Some employees stay on a job they would like to leave, but stay because they’re afraid they may lose their health care coverage. Seeing they have no other option; they may stay in a position that doesn’t treat them fairly, or doesn’t allow them to reach their hopes or full potential. Working under these conditions can lower productivity, increase stress, and may increase the chance of employees becoming sick. Employer Based Health Care An Employer Based Health Care System is Wrong. A For-Profit Market Driven Health Care System is Wrong! Employer-based health care coverage in the United States is a disgraceful two-tier system. In order for an employee to gain access to health insurance through his or her own job, three conditions have to be met: First, the company must offer insurance; second, the worker has to be eligible, and third the worker has to be able to afford the insurance he or she is eligible for.
If you lose your job under an employer-based system, for whatever reason, there is a fair chance you will lose your health care coverage. Losing health care coverage for a prolonged period of time may cause a sick person to go without medicine, seeing a doctor, or becoming increasingly sick. Having people uninsured causes health care costs to rise, as these patients are forced into more expensive medical care. The middle and upper class have to pick-up the tab through cost shifting. That’s why we pay $10 for an aspirin. New increases in employer based healthcare coverage makes it impossible for companies to compete on the global market where foreign companies pay much less for a National Program. More and more major companies simply can’t afford it anymore. In turn employers shift costs to employees, and many employees can’t make the payments, and go uninsured. Countries that have universal health care coverage have dramatically lower overall costs. Their people enjoy higher life expectancy, more years without disability, lower mortality rates, lower infant mortality rates, and greater general patient satisfaction. Some employees stay on a job they would like to leave, because they’re afraid they may lose their health care coverage or portability. Seeing they have no other option; they may stay in a position that doesn’t allow them to reach their full potential, lowers their productivity, or hinders their hopes and dreams. Employer-based health care gives advantage to employers to control their employees. A great benefit of a single-payer system is that it is portable (people can switch jobs or go out of the country and still retain their health care coverage), which an employer-based system can’t provide. Employers should be working for reform, but instead they are shifting costs to their employees. Sinking employer-based benefits in the United States are due to double-digit premium increases. Wages went up in (2001) 2.9 percent; inflation 2.2 percent and healthcare premiums went up on an average of 13 percent. Employers should stop trying to provide health care coverage and work toward a fairer system. 7. You will be looking for a job to get healthcare coverage. You will compromise in taking the job you are best suited for or the job you want. Employees should seek a job that provides fair wages, good working conditions, a quality job, and for which they have appropriate skills. Employers should also want this. 8. Unions should only have to bargain for wages, workers rights and good working conditions. Anybody that suggests a continuation of employer-based health care is not doing so in the best interest of a sound health care system for the United States. If a candidate suggests employer-based health care, under any conditions, they are not out for your best interest. Business leaders want Comprehensive Health Care Reform. They need it now! In 2002 Ford spent 2.8 billion on health care for its 230,000 employees, that’s over a thousand dollars a month for each. Ford says that without a national solution to the problem, the company will not be able to compete in the global marketplace. Carlos Gutierrez chairperson and CEO of Kellogg Corp. said: Our healthcare costs were up nearly 30 percent last year alone…10 times faster than our U.S. sales and 20 times higher than the projected increases for our raw materials and packaging." General Electric spokesperson Gary Sheffer said the company’s health costs have increased 45 percent, from $965 million in 1999 to $1.4 billion last year. The company has absorbed more than 90 percent of that increase. The union leaders say it is unfair for the profitable company to ask its workers to pay 30 percent of health care costs, up from the current 19 percent. But unions should wake up and insist that their employers work for reform, because there is no bargaining for health care anymore. "The health care costs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler are "handicapping" their competitiveness against foreign automakers that have lower health care costs." Detroit’s staggering and growing health care tab-$8.8 billion in 2002 is expected to dominate the bargaining between employers and workers. UAW President Ron Gettelfinger agrees, "The health care crisis can’t be fixed at the bargaining table." What both sides need to realize is that the health care issue can’t be solved [by cost shifting to employees]; they need to push to get this issue on the national agenda. Depending on corporations and business to cover our health care cost has put us out of reality on the subject and now it’s showing up. Many of the 41 million uninsured would "happily pay for a policy that met their needs at a reasonable price," says the Wall Street Journal. The problem is the faulty assumption that employers provide us with health care coverage, which is highlighted in "a new round of labor discord" over health care benefits at General Electric. This "plays dodge ball with [the] reality" that workers have always paid for their own health care, by trading it for higher wages. Plus, the employer-based system encourages "profligate and wasteful consumption" and gives "the fattest subsidy to those in the highest tax bracket." "This year’s crop of Democrats offers nothing helpful," according to the Wall Street Journal, because all the proposals (save for Representative Dennis Kucinich’s single-payer plan) depend on the employer-based system. Furthermore, giving tax benefits to companies providing health insurance remains "the central engine of inefficient healthcare inflation. On that note, Richard Gephardt proposes that all employers provide their employees with health insurance: with 60 percent of the cost to each business being offset by tax credits. President Bush proposes tax credits to buy private insurance and tax subsidies to business. All the other candidates for president want some form of employer based health care except Kucinich, Braun, and Sharpton. Soaring worker health care costs are the "biggest headache" for small companies. The United States has about 5.8 small businesses, and these employ about half of all workers. Their costs increased by about 15 percent this year with many companies facing increases of 20 percent or more. Many low-wage earners work in small companies; small firms are much less likely than large firms to offer their workers health insurance. In companies of fewer than 25 employees, nearly 40 percent of low-wage workers are uninsured. Low income workers spend more of their income for health insurance. Workers in all wage categories who allocate 5 percent or more of their income to health insurance premiums report the least comprehensive coverage and the least satisfaction with their health plans. Lack of health insurance or coverage of poor quality has real implications for the health and finances of low-wage workers and their families. These workers face financial barriers to health care when it is needed and struggle to pay medical bills when they do access the health care system. Forgone care includes not seeing a doctor or a specialist when sick, failing to fill a prescription, or skipping a recommended medical test, treatment, or follow-up visit. In response to higher costs, companies are eliminating benefits, shifting costs to employees, and cutting overhead. We now have higher co-pays, deductibles, and defined contribution (companies ask employees to pay part of their hospital cost when they’re discharged). 43 percent of Michigan small businesses have raised employee co-pays to cope with rising costs, 36 percent increased deductibles, and 34 percent have lowered wages. Those who already have good medical coverage should be leading the charge to make sure everyone else has good medical coverage too. That’s because "living without health insurance isn’t free in a society that takes all comers in hospital emergency rooms." This expensive means of caring for the uninsured adds a surcharge of up to 20 percent on health care premiums for the insured. Employer-based health care is wrong, it’s not only an unfair two tier system, it’s disrupting our means to compete, and limiting our freedoms. A single-payer system with its fairness and low 3 percent overhead is the answer. It’s the only answer! Employer Based Health Care (People are looking toward government) Companies of all sizes are citing soaring increases in health insurance costs "as the biggest threat to their bottom lines and their future". The jump in the uninsured by 2.5 million in 2002 is attributed almost exclusively to employers, especially small ones, who are dropping coverage due to double digit increases. Of 4,600 small businesses surveyed, 66 percent ranked health care costs as a critical problem. No other single problem can touch healthcare costs in terms of either the unanimity or intensity of concern it generates among small-business owners. Neither Bush nor Kerry is focusing on policy options that business groups think will hold down costs. Premium costs across the nation averaged $9,068 for a family in 2003, compared to $7,954 the previous year. Small employers facing soaring health care costs "are fighting back as rising premiums threaten entrepreneurship. Such costs are the "top issue" for the nation’s 5.8 million small employers, who employ about half of the nation’s 115 million private-sector workers. Mandates of SB2 in California would make a certain employer provide coverage for dependents of his 280 workers raising his cost for health care from its current $600,000 to $1.3 million. Stop the Healthcare Tax coalition plans to spend up to $15 million to defeat the law, the group warns of SB2’s potential impact on California’s wobbly economy. General Motors and Ford Motor Company say, fixing soaring health care costs that is "crippling the competitiveness of American Companies should be the top priority for the next president. "It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us and get together to address this health care crisis. This "call for government intervention represents something of a change in the thinking of corporate America, "which believed that market forces could control the problem of rising health care costs". As costs continue to rise, more businesses become unable to afford coverage, and the number of uninsured grows, "people are looking increasingly to the government for solutions. Kerry’s focus on health care costs: Critics say the plan "does little more than shift costs from ratepayers to taxpayers. His plan is very costly and would not cover all of the uninsured. New Yorkers "paid a heart-stopping 54 percent more" for health insurance in 2003 than in 2001. A survey of more than 500 businesses in New York state found that 42 percent of employers anticipate increasing what their workers pay again. "Premiums are going up and workers are being asked to pay a higher percentage. It’s just adding to the unaffordability of health care. States are still suffering from the fall out of the recent budget crisis, while "physicians are also reaching their breaking point. America:" We need to shake you and wake you. We need to highlight our nation’s inability to address a problem that most of the developed world handled decade ago. We can no longer turn our backs on the millions with little or no access to health care. We must be committed to achieving the goal of health care for all Americans." "Those of us on the front lines (emergency room physicians) know that we have a crisis on our hands. The 44 million uninsured Americans are "America’s No. 1 health emergency".
An End to Employer Based Healthcare Coverage And For-Profit Health Care The American people have witnessed failure. Failure that health care reformist like Universal Health Care Action Network (UHCAN) and Physicians for National Health Program (PNHP) predicted if we allowed our healthcare system to be privatized. They knew because "A system with multiple insurance companies and for-profit HMOs has no rational justification, they are a cost burden of increasing proportions. Not only have they failed to contain costs, they have disrupted physician’s decisions. They have made our most honorable profession more and more into a business focusing on profits instead of concern for patients. Healthcare is not something you can treat as a market commodity, it’s too important for all of us. It’s not like buying a stove or refrigerator, it’s something that requires a conscience, and a freedom to do the right thing no matter what happens. Doctor’s decisions should not be tampered with." Nearly two-thirds of all HMOs are now for-profit. These companies who have to produce profits have a CEO and administrative staff, how can they contain costs, of course just the opposite has happened. Just look at some of the salaries these CEOs are making. The highest paid executive in the industry in 2000 was paid $54 million in just compensation with $358 million in stock options. We have tried to establish cost containment with companies who have to produce profit on top of their high overhead costs. Countries that have universal healthcare coverage have dramatically lower overall costs. Their people enjoy higher life expectancy, more years without disability, lower mortality rates, and greater general patient satisfaction compared to the United States. A sound health care system, which includes preventive medicine, saves money. In America our health care system focuses on curing the sick and very little on preventive medicine. No matter what someone tells you, we need a healthcare system that is publicly administered, is universal, comprehensive, accessible, and portable (meaning we are covered no matter where we are located). We need to use our conscience, integrity and good sense to give our kids a fairer and brighter future. A sense of togetherness was lacking when we let our healthcare be privatized. We made a mistake so now lets correct it. Eight years have gone by since the Clinton Healthcare plan was defeated. Do not mistake this for a publicly administered health plan. It was constructed by large health care insurance companies and defeated by the smaller insurance companies in groups. It was to promote competition among insurance companies in the hope it would lower costs, it would have caused other problems, and physicians and the public were left out of the decisions.
Our Wasteful Employer Based System Our wasteful employer-based system of health care coverage is almost played-out. It has cost us billions. It has been estimated that only 50 percent of our private insurance health care dollars now go toward health care. The combination of for-profit and employer-based has got to go if we are to solve our health care crisis. Studies project that health care premiums will increase by more than 50 percent by 2006, at least 10 million people will become uninsured within three years, and employers will continue shifting costs to workers, reports the Hartford Courant. "These increases will make it more difficult for businesses especially smaller or less profitable firms-to continue to provide health coverage for their employees". A study from the Commonwealth Fund found growing numbers of young adults who lose coverage after graduating from college joining the ranks of the uninsured. Four out of 10 adults' aged 19-29 can expect to be uninsured at some time after graduation, the study found. Only one hopeful candidate for the 2004 presidential election has the courage, compassion, and intelligence to suggest a level headed, viable, and uninfluenced solution "Medicaare-for-All" or in other words a single-payer system. All the rest are suggesting an employer-based system. Employer-Based Coverage Has Failed Employers "should be advocating an end to employer-financed health coverage altogether.. It makes it difficult to change jobs, which reduces labor competition and thus reduces wages. It suppresses the creation of new business by making would-be entrepreneurs fearful of leaving a regular job. It handicaps traditional industries by hampering them with huge medical costs for retirees. It excludes the unemployed, the self-employed, and low-skilled workers. Furthermore, the system obscures "who is paying what," so that employees unwittingly trade lower wages for insurance coverage, and leaves both employees and their employers footing the bill for the uninsured. A cost spiral occurs as employers shift rising costs onto employees, so that employees-especially healthy ones-face growing incentives to risk going without coverage. Higher out-of-pocket costs encourage people to forgo preventive-oriented therapy for chronic conditions that left ill-treated, reduce productivity and shorten lives. When healthy people abandon the risk pool, medical insurance markets break down as those who are sicker stay in the pool and drive up the per-person costs. A recent study found that 71 percent of respondents would choose a lower salary job with benefits over a higher salary job without benefits. In addition, 20 percent of respondents were dissatisfied with the health benefits offered by their company, and half said that they were worried that their health benefits would be cut in the coming year. According to a study, overall, only 47.6 percent of small companies offer health insurance to their employees. One quarter of the employees of large employers did not have health coverage. Ending tax subsidies to employers to provide health insurance to their employees could possibly save as much as $193 billion. Employer Based Health Care has come to a Dead End Instead of working for health care reform the employer shifts costs to the employee. Sinking Employer based benefits in the United States:
New increases in employer based health coverage makes it harder for our industry to compete on a global market, because all the other industrialized countries have a Public Health Care System, which costs much less to operate than our private for-profit system. Small Business which employs over 50 percent of the work force is increasingly dropping coverage for their employees. Employers used to cover 85 percent of the work force; they now cover only 57 percent. The government now pays for over 60 percent of health care costs. We now spend over 1.8 Trillion dollars to pay for health care in this country. That's over $6,000 per capita, more than twice the average per capita for the rest of the industrialized countries. Yet we still have 45 million uninsured and many millions more underinsured.
Employers unexpectedly cut health care costs this year, but "they did it mostly by shifting an unprecedented share of the expense to employees." A 14% increase in the average cost of employer health plans was predicted for 2003. Such "cost shifting" is likely to continue next year when costs will surge again by 13 %. The cost increases are "driven mostly by bigger insurance claims stemming from higher prices for hospital services and prescription drugs. Employers facing a 13% increase in health care costs will use more creative ways to shift costs to workers:
Employers should not be increasing employer contributions; they should be supporting a National Health Insurance Program. States are faced with budget shortfalls due to rising prices, job losses, cuts in taxes and slowed consumer buying and economic activity. All 50 states froze or cut Medicaid payments to doctors and hospitals and limited prescription drug spending. |