The End of Health Care For Blue Collar

[pippin]

workers.

"All you've got to do is look at the two Southern California strikes now underway — by supermarket employees and MTA mechanics — to see what we're in for. Health care is at the heart of each dispute. Employers get hit with rising health-care costs, which cuts into profits. So they pass some of the damage on to employees, which is the equivalent of docking their pay. . .the MTA employee and the supermarket employee are examples of what was supposed to be the bedrock of society — working people playing by all the rules and enjoying the benefits," says Kent Wong, director of UCLA's Center for Labor Research and Education.

"Now we have a situation in which the largest employer in the nation — Wal-Mart — refuses to pay full medical care for their workers and families. They are causing a great drain on the public sector, because when their employees get sick, they get treated at public expense. . . But why should it continue giving employees the Cadillac of health-care plans when Wal-Mart is setting such a different standard? "It's an attack on the middle class," says Wong, and part of the continued division of the labor force into haves and have-nots."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lopez15oct15,1,97720.column?coll=la-headlines-california

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. It's cheaper to pay life insurance benefits on them than health care

Few low wage earners can afford huge payout life insurance premiums.

The majority take the standard group policy that is essentially "burial insurance."

It is much cheaper for insurance companies to just pay the burial insurance, usually under $100,000, than to shell out 2 to 10 times that amount for even one serious hospitalization or surgical event, let alone the cost of lesser claims.

That reality is reflected in the price they charge employers for the group coverage.

The employer must either adjust their own contribution to health coverage, thus pricing most of their employees out of the market, or reduce coverage offered to the popular "catastrophic" policies, that used to be called "hopitalization coverage," which are essentially meaningless because they typically only kick in after several days, sometimes a week, of in-patient hospital care, at which point they will pay 80%, but since few low income employees can afford to pay 20% of the cost of either surgical procedures or a week of hospitalization, these are not favored by the health care industry, and most medical facilities will now require not only proof of health coverage, but some indication that the patient is able to pay the part not covered, as well as deductibles.

As poverty increases, there is really no reason for employers to provide health coverage to their low wage employees at all, as there is an ample supply of replacements for employees lost due to health problems, death, or just leaving for whatever reason.

[IrateCitizen]

2. But God forbid we propose universal health coverage!

That's just a socialist fantasy! We all know the majority of the electorate will never go for it!

[leftofthedial]

3. too expensive to go after the insurance companies

or the system.

we'll never get this fixed. there is too much money in politics for this to ever be resolved.

[Snow]

4. Very nice article in the LA Times on this,

in fact, there have been several. One writer pointed out that Wal-Mart makes profits in part by having such crappy health benefits that during the hiring process, apparently the Wal-Mart HR people hand out medicare (or is it medicaid? - anyway) applications to new employees. Just thnk, Wal-Mart is leading us towards a government based single payer health care system!

[Bandit]

5. I am an Employer and I don't think it is fair for Employers to have to pay

for Health Insurance of Employees. I think this is a burden that belongs with the Federal government. I am not saying Employees don't deserve Health Insurance. I'm saying why is it my responsibility? Granted some large firms started doing this as a benefit for their employees so they would stay and work harder for that firm. I can understand the logic behind that additional benefit but what I can't understand is how it got to be almost mandatory for employers to provide health insurance. The Government is responsible for the Health and Welfare of it's citizens.

[lindashaw]

6. I remember when everyone was responsible for their own health

care. I can remember (in the 60s) when they first started taking the health care deduction from my husband's pay check. We had 3 children before that time, and we paid for them and we paid for any trips to the doctor.

[Unknown Known]

9. That was before doctors and insurance companies got so greedy

and figured out how to scam people.

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

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[Bandit]

10. I take you don't believe in preventative maintenance

Or preventative health maintenance. I know as a business owner if I don't practice preventative maintenance my costs tend to soar just as health costs are doing in America. If you want to cut health care costs you need to have universal coverage with a single payer so all costs are considered bulk and therefore much much lower than currently available. Your talking points are as much garbage as your fearless leader Bush* the bunnypants.