Posted on 02/14/2006 6:37:40 AM PST by Graybeard58
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. It has been well documented that many of the estimated 45 million Americans who do not carry health insurance have access to employer-funded policies or are eligible for public programs such as Medicaid. Rather than try to solve the problem, activists condemn insurance companies as greedy or Americans in general for not caring about the downtrodden.
Now comes a discouraging report from a coalition of employers that sought to bring insurance coverage to contractual, part-time and temporary workers who do not qualify for polices offered to full-time employees. Of more than 900,000 workers eligible for coverage under the National Health Access program, only 5,726 signed up, according to a Feb. 8 Wall Street Journal article. Most of the rest had coverage from another source, such as a spouse, but nearly 15 percent chose not to participate even though they had no other insurance options.
Some personnel managers attributed the lack of interest to the complexity of the employer group's offerings, the Journal said. Companies that required supervisors to discuss the program personally with eligible workers got a better response than those who simply mailed out forms and booklets.
To become attractive to low- and middle-income working people, such policies need to be inexpensive and comprehensive enough to overcome young, healthy workers' temptation to risk going without coverage. Premiums for National Health Access ranged as high as $390 per month and might go higher because of the low response.
"The free-market model does not work in providing health care," writes Mary E. O'Brien, M.D., of New York, in an op-ed column for Knight-Ridder/Tribune. This perspective might be credible if a free market actually existed.
Connecticut, for example, trails only Maryland and Virginia in mandating insurance coverage of specific treatments and procedures, according to Peter Gioia, an economist with the Connecticut Business and Industry Association. Typically, such mandates are imposed not because of public outcry, but because lobbyists promote the mandates on behalf of their well-heeled clients in the care-giving professions. Public-employee unions contribute to the problem by using mandates to fatten their contracts. Connecticut has more than 50 such mandates that inflate the cost of medical insurance.
The National Health Access program, supported by such giants as General Electric and IBM, shows the private sector is trying to put a dent in the ranks of the uninsured. But America will not be able to harness the enormous problem-solving power of the free market until government gets out of the way and lets the customers -- private-sector employers and their workers -- make their own decisions on coverage.
I suspect that an honest evaluation of why health care is so expensive would show that Government Spending in health care is the biggest contributor to the rise in its cost.
The same is true for higher education. The more grants and easy, low interest loans that become available, the higher the cost of higher education.
Why have insurance when you can walk in to an emergency room and get helped?
Imagine how difficult it would be to sell auto insurance if when you had a wreck, a tow truck would come and get your car whether you could pay or not, the truck would take your car to the nearest body shop, where they would be forced by law to repair it, whether you had insurance or not and whether you intended to pay or not.
The question is not if we get gov't medical ins. but when...
Come out, Chris Dodd, wherever you are.
Connecticut is no longer the booming insurance company state it once was, thanks to health insurance entitlements which raise premiums to an unpayable level.
Healthcare in CT cost my wife and me $1208.00 a month.
Moved to Florida and we pay $484.50 a month for better coverage.
Connecticut Business and Industry Association also backed the enactment of state income tax in CT. When they called my business and wanted me to join, I said any organization that thinks raising taxes is the answer to budget deficits is far too stupid for me to want to join.
...but nearly 15 percent chose not to participate even though they had no other insurance options...
>>>>>>>>
Hillary will take care of them.
--judging by my experience with young workers, if it were clear to them that in case of catastrophic medical expenses (from a car wreck for example) they could very well be paying for it out of pocket the rest of their life, they would get appropriate high-deductable coverage. As it is , most young workers know that if anything happens , they just go to the emergency room and get covered by the taxpayers---
Our expansive medical center in Houston has become the worlds largest free clinic. Why be the one chump to pay for insurance?
That you get medical care "for free" at an emergency room is only true if you have no assets. If you have any assets, the hospital will try to collect for its services.
I know a family of 6 who make a small decent amount of money, enough to provide the basics. They own two old cars, they rent their house, and there is no money left over for savings. So, they use the emergency room for "free" because the hospital can do nothing about it.
My brother in law and his wife had money for jet skis, beer, pot, etc. but CHOSE not to buy health insurance, even with the employer paying part of it. They were young and healthy and felt no need for it. These paragons of ethics also waited until after the 2nd baby was born before declaring bankruptcy cause they didn't want to pay their bills, including the hospital bill. If one can skate out of medical obligations in this fashion why would they buy insurance?
"I suspect that an honest evaluation of why health care is so expensive would show that Government Spending in health care is the biggest contributor to the rise in its cost."
That and the whole health insurance middleman. Take out the administrative costs of health insurance and the price of care drops enormously.
You have described the problem and one of the causes of the problem all in the same sentence.
I don't see a solution though.
How strong are the laws requiring companies to cover spouse and children of the employee? God forbid that should change, but it would appear that is what the insurance companies would like to work on. Insuring only the employee would ensure the necessity of the spouse to work and the children would then all be taken care of by the state? Another step toward the nanny state? This already occurs for other reasons, but what would happen if it was deliberately initiated by the insurance companies? Or am I way off base thinking this could happen?
"Why would they buy insurance?"
Exactly. People should not be coerced to buy insurance. Insurance only makes sense for someone trying to protect his assests. Insurance ought to be a free-market mechanism for distributing risk among a pool of WILLING participants.
People don't need health insurance. They need affordable health care. The problem is the insane cost. The root of that problem is that we have over-insurance, including government funded (ie. coerced taxpayer funded) medical insurance.
Comprehensive coverage costs about $1400 per month for my wife and me. Thank goodness I don't have to pay it.
We used to have that. What happened? I remember that when HMOs began, I hated the idea.
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