Today, though, corporations find providing health insurance for their employees too costly. Since 2000, health-insurance premiums have risen 87 percent. The average employer-based premium for a family is more than $11,000 (more than a minimum-wage worker can earn in a year). Faced with such exorbitant premiums, employers have felt the pressure to switch to plans with high deductibles for their employees or to eliminate health plans entirely. They also have had to cut jobs. Chrysler announced it would close two factories and do away with 13,000 jobs to reduce their health-insurance costs.
Some companies, General Motors, for example, have cut benefits but still find their costs so high they cannot compete in today's global economy. Their very existence is in danger. Ford Motor Co. carries insurance on 570,000 people, including past employees and current employees and their dependents, spending $3.5 billion last year. Those costs add $1,200 to every vehicle they produce, creating a serious disadvantage in competing with companies in countries with a national health-insurance plan. Beyond any doubt, high insurance costs hurt American industry.
Small businesses that offer their employees health insurance suffer also. Some businesses face 50 percent premium increases yearly. In order to cover exorbitant health-insurance expenditures, they often cut staff in order to keep the business running. Cutting staff, though, means more responsibility and more stress for the remaining workers. Small businesses that do not offer insurance have a profit advantage over those that do, but because of the disadvantages around hiring and retaining reliable, good workers, they too want to fix our broken health-care system.
With both big and small business, the money spent on health insurance is money not spent on growth, innovation, or higher wages.
A single-payer system, such as HR 676, Improved Medicare for All, will benefit business in general. The plan will contain and stabilize costs and eliminate the waste generated by the for-profit system (which I will examine in another article) while providing health care for everyone. Costs for employers would drop dramatically and benefits would improve. Those lower costs would go into profits, profits that could be used for capital improvements or adding more employees or improving salaries. With everyone insured, business could expect healthier employees and higher productivity, less absenteeism, and lower employee turnover. United States business could once again be competitive.
At the same time, HR 676 has been endorsed by 330 union organizations in 48 states including 93 central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 24 state AFL-CIOs.
But in Virginia only Representative Bobby Scott is on the list of the 85 co-sponsors of the bill. We plan to elect Rasoul to replace Goodlatte, who firmly and unequivocally says no to national health care. But we need more. We have nine districts to go after Scott and Rasoul. What about the others? Any luck in convincing your current Representative ---- or is it time to replace him or her? I think this issue could assure us eleven Democrats representing Virginia in Congress. Now that would turn some heads.
We could use a senator on our side too. Right now we are asking Senator Webb to hold an informal hearing on our health care delivery problems. We can use everyone's help ---- call at 202-224-4024. I have been favorably impressed with his hearings on prisons ---- so very proud of him. And then we have to ask our next senator to join us in getting national health care, Medicare for All.
Our author, Sam, has done his research and I think lived this problem. It does Sam credit that he can write about it so clearly and concisely, as he touches on the probable solution ("A single-payer system, such as HR 676, Improved Medicare for All, ...).
Today I am a retired private sector person, who served three years (1967-70) in the U. S. Army. During that time I have seen only a few private sector operations that were efficient, and some that were chaotic, on their best days. Conversely, most of the public sector operations which I interacted with appeared efficient.
So, I have little patience with folks who use the old "beware Socialized Medicine" bugaboo. What we are paying for with our present health care "system" is organized crime. It is guided by the worst instincts of the powerful in the public and private sectors of our society.
We need to make changes and Sam Rasoul will help with that effort.
I would like to see someone address the problem of cafeteria style plans, too, where you have to guess at the kind of coverage you may need and can often be surprised by odd gaps in coverage. Moreover, most of these plans top off at a one million dollar lifetime expenditure. Thankfully, I was able to move from my cafeteria plan to a PPO sponsored by the Virginia State Bar, but I've probably gone through over $100,000 in treatments this year already, and am now virtually uninsurable due to my pre-existing condition should I ever lose my current insurance. The pre-existing condition exclusion has to be banned if we are going to remain on a privately insured health care system.
How can you trust a company to provide the care you deserve when their #1 priority is to turn a profit? They make money while the American people suffer. Certainly, this cannot be allowed to continue. If it does, I hope you are either very rich or extremely healthy.
Let's take a stand and support Sam Rasoul and others who fight to pass important legislation such as HR 676.