The Real Crisis
Cover the Uninsured Week focuses on health insurance problems
While Social Security garners the headlines and attention, the real crisis devastating American working families gets little attention on Capitol Hill — health care costs.
For unions at the bargaining table, no other issue is as challenging as health insurance costs. And indications are it will get worse. With health care costs rising at double-digit rates each year, employers are getting squeezed. And they turn around and shift costs onto workers or drop coverage altogether. In 2004 employer health care insurance premiums jumped an average of 11.2 percent — more than five times the rate of inflation.
“It’s very serious,” said Rick Klingenberg, vice president of amalgamated UAW Local 710 that represents 24 plants in the Kansas City, Mo., area. “When we’re negotiating, every nickel you get on the wage package is offset on the health care.”
According to Families USA, a nonprofit group working for affordable health care, premiums paid by workers from 2000 to 2004 rose nearly three times faster than average U.S. earnings. Three-fourths of small businesses in this country offer no health insurance at all.
Cover the Uninsured Week, May 1-8, focuses attention on this national disgrace. Today 45 million Americans under 65, including 8 million children, are uninsured. That’s one of every seven Americans. They come from every community, ethnic group and income level. And since 2000 their numbers have grown more than 5 million.
“The current health care crisis cannot be solved at the bargaining table,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. “We need a national health care plan that can bring relief for the millions of workers who have no insurance coverage, and for those hit with higher deductibles, monthly premium sharing and rising co-pays.”
The problem grows worse each year as health care premiums soar, fewer companies offer health care for their workers, and unions lose ground holding down health care costs for workers and retirees. And while union workers have a better chance of having insurance, the number of workers with insurance coverage is dwindling. In 2003 more than eight in 10 uninsured came from working families —- 70 percent from families with one or more full-time workers and 12 percent from families with part-time workers. Only 19 percent of uninsured Americans came from unemployed families.
Even those with insurance aren’t immune from high medical bills. The Journal of Health Affairs recently reported that half of the 4 million U.S. bankruptcies filed last year were by people who faced high medical bills from a recent health problem. And 75.7 percent of them had health insurance at the onset of their bankrupting illness.
Lack of health insurance isn’t a saving, it’s a public cost. People with minor medical problems don’t seek treatment until they are big problems, often handled in super expensive emergency rooms. Then those costs are shifted onto others through higher insurance rates and tax-funded public programs.
A single-payer national insurance program would make a huge difference. At $6,200 per capita, Americans already pay more for health care than any other country, but we are the only major industrialized country with no national health insurance. Not only would a single-payer plan insure every worker, it wouldn’t cost any more than we already pay.
According to several studies, including one by Physicians for a National Health Plan, national health insurance would pay for itself by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private insurance industry, and reducing marketing costs.
Doctors and hospitals would be relieved of paperwork costs from doing business with multiple insurers with different rules. Even the Congressional Budget Office and the General Accountability Office agree that national health insurance could save enough on bureaucracy to cover all Americans for what we’re now spending.
“We need to activate our members and make sure they understand what is at stake,” said Klingenberg.
You can help by talking with your co-workers and neighbors, writing letters to your local newspaper or visiting the UAW Web site at www.uaw.org where you can contact your elected officials to let them know that Americans need affordable health care now.
What’s myth, what’s not
Myth: People without health insurance coverage don’t work.
Fact Seventy-five percent live in families where at least one person works full time. Twenty percent live in families that have two full-time workers.
Myth: Most people without health insurance are poor.
Fact Almost 29 million of the uninsured in 2002 had household earnings of at least $25,000. In 2002 the federal poverty guideline for a family of four was $18, 850.
Myth: It doesn’t really matter if a person doesn’t have health insurance.
Fact About 18,000 Americans die each year because they did not seek early medical attention for a treatable illness, due to lack of insurance.
Myth: Most uninsured children live in single-parent households.
Fact More than half live with both parents.
Myth: People who don’t have health insurance simply don’t want to pay for it.
Fact Seventy-five percent of uninsured adults say the main reason they are not insured is they cannot afford the premiums.
Source: CovertheUninsuredWeek.org
