One of the worst problems the current health care system causes is wage stagnation. Companies facing ever increasing health costs hold back on salary increases, trading benefits for a better wage.
This affects communities as well as individuals.
Collectively, the amount of money which can build and improve cities and towns across the nation is being siphoned off into bloated profits for health insurance companies. If insurance lobbyists prevail in the health care debate, they may get so bloated they take off, like so many hot air balloons.
Sure, they'll step up their funding to community arts groups, and cajole extra days out of their employees to repair poor peoples' houses or man food banks. But possibly that money could be put to better use if spread around more equitably through higher wages.
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4 comments:
I like the "which side are you on?" formulation, and am contemplating a more localized application.
That almost rhymes.
Of course, we need to recognize that we are ALL on the same side.
Harold: Maude, you're so good with people.
Maude: Well, they're my species.
As a point of reference:
If one goes to Yahoo Finance, you can find the financials on the publicly held insurance companies. There are eight listed, Aetna, Cigna, United, Humana, Wellpoint, and some smaller plans.
If you total up the most recent year's total net income for these companies, combined, (and divide by the population of the US) you will find that the profits per capita come out to about $27 per person.
On the other hand, if we were to make Medicaid more efficient by only 10%, you could free up over FOUR times as much money as eliminating 100% of the insurance company profits. (Medicaid spending is something like $350 billion per year, or well over $1000 per person.)
That's a great idea, Rich. Since Medicare is more efficient than Medicaid (which is administered differently from state to state), we'll use the Medicare model, save the amount you're talking about AND eliminate insurance company profits.
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