Adequate Coverage?

Submitted by Dr. JG Kaplan on Wed, 2009-07-01 18:14
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the world's largest retailer, is in favor of President Obama's initiative—to mandate that large employers offer health insurance to workers and their families. But, isn't this is the same company who is accused of "mistreating employees and not offering adequate healthcare coverage"? Why would they endorse reform?
 
Follow the $$$$
 
Cost reduction is part of any reasonable health care reform proposal. In the case, the retailer wants assurances; they "support legislation that would put a public healthcare plan in place should private health insurers fail to meet price and competition targets, also known as a "trigger" provision
 
Note the confusion of terms if not obfuscation here:
  • Many people interpret "mandatory health insurance" to mean that every person must buy health insurance. But, here it's used to mean that every employer must buy insurance for their employees, a terrible idea!
  • Employer-paid insurance runs into the problems of ERISA preemption, lack of portability (lose your job and you're uninsured), and then there's the issue of who pays to cover the unemployed.
  • As far as "requiring everyone to buy insurance", I'm opposed to that too. Health care should be axiomatic. It should be automatic for every citizen, without them having to explicitly "buy" insurance—you don't have to explicitly pay for the fire department, do you?
  • One of the biggest wastes of the current system is that one has to check each patient for their insurance coverage. That wouldn't be necessary with a universal system.
·         Health care should be paid for out of general tax revenues, just as the Army is, and taxes should be raised to the level needed to pay for it. Rather than make employers buy insurance, there could be a tax imposed on employers to help pay for the overall system.
 
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Of course, there's the other side, as well. John Stossel points to cost-control through long waiting lines and outright denials under government management. He warns us, don't believe polls from countries with socialized medicine taken when patients are well and not when they are in need.  (See, "Better Health Care?")  

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