Affordable Health Care
There is a reason that American health care is second to none in the world: American dedication to medical science and the economic health that can develop such health care. However, the industry must reach out to the tens of millions of Americans for whom affordable health care is not available.
Over 44 million Americans have no health insurance. However, over 60 percent of the uninsured are employed by a small business. How can a small business obtain the same buying power as a large corporation and help its employees obtain health insurance? It can be done if real purchase-pooling and real tax credits were available to small businesses. If small business received such support, over 25 million Americans could obtain health insurance this year. If Medicaid was carefully expanded to cover uninsured children, 9.2 million children could be covered by medical insurance this year.
At present, Americans spend almost 900 billion per year for health care costs. Due in part to the 44 million uninsured, health care costs have increased 14% per year. If anyone thinks that we???re not paying for the uninsured right now, take a look at this example of ???cost shifting.???
Smith and Jones both own a construction company. Smith provides health care coverage to his employees, Jones does not. Because Smith takes care of his employees, his costs are higher, and therefore, he can???t win a bid against Jones because Jones doesn???t have the increased overhead from taking good care of his employees. However, when Jones??? crew is working on that job, and one of his employees is hurt and goes to the hospital, who will pay for the medical care Jones??? injured employee receives? Smith pays. In fact, we all will pay because the medical industry must ???shift??? the cost of such free care to those of us who do pay. It is time we level the playing field for small business?