Thursday, March 24, 2005
It's not easy to 'get a job' with a health plan
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Smith is a writer and editor living in Roanoke.
Who would have thought that a heartwarming story about the Roanoke community rallying to help uninsured artist Elaine Fleck meet the financial obligations of her health crisis would bring forth a self-righteous backlash from readers who thought she didn't deserve it?
But the letter that really got to me came from Ginny Mitchell ("Get a job," Feb. 28), who opined that it is the "responsibility" of every able-bodied adult to just darn well go out and get a job with health benefits. And if one's not enough, get two. As if it were that simple.
Over the past several years, it has been impossible to miss the many news reports about downsizings, outsourcings and industry segment collapses in this country, all of which have forced "responsible," able-bodied adults to spend months and sometimes years trying to replace those lost jobs with something comparable. Not all of them succeed.
In his op-ed piece in The New York Times Feb. 28, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich pointed out: "Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in freefall."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau's Web site, as of 2003 (the most recent year for which figures were published), some 45 million people were uninsured, up from 43.6 million in 2002. Meanwhile, the number of people covered by employment-based health insurance fell by more than a million, from 175.3 million in 2002 to 174 million in 2003.
The new reality is that even established businesses are having a harder and harder time absorbing the costs of employee health insurance. And many jobs - even some full-time positions - don't offer it to begin with.
Those poison-pen letter writers are banging the wrong drum. The problem is not that every able-bodied adult won't go out and get a job with health benefits. The real problem is that, even in one of the world's most affluent nations, they can't.
So, just for fun, let's say you set out to buy your own policy. Surfing for quotes on ehealthinsurance.com, I plugged in some stats for my husband and myself (50-something and 40-something, nonsmokers) and found options that ranged from an Aetna PPO with a 20 percent copay, $20 office visit and $500 deductible for $793 a month, to a network plan from a company called Golden Rule for $161 a month that doesn't cover office visits at all and has a deductible of $10,000! More typical was an Anthem indemnity plan with a 20 percent copay, $20 office visit and a $300 deductible for $433 a month.
Now let's say you're one of those 80 percent who work for an hourly wage. Two earners making $8 an hour would bring home about $2,560 a month before taxes. The $433 Anthem plan would consume about 16 percent of that couple's combined monthly gross income. Assuming housing took the sensible-budget limit of 30 percent, this couple has just over half their monthly income remaining to pay for food, utilities, automobile expenses, etc.
However, drop those incomes to the federal minimum wage of $5.15 an hour, and the relatively reasonable Anthem plan consumes more than a quarter of their combined monthly gross income. Subtract housing, and this couple is left with well under $1,000 a month for everything they need. Wonder if Ken Lay could get by on that?
Writing about global markets for health information technology on the website Healthcare Informatics Online, senior editor Polly Schneider notes: "A critical difference between the U.S. market and the rest of the world is that in most other countries, health care is considered part of the national responsibility."
The highest calling of any system of government is providing services for its citizens, especially those most in need. But for the past four years, the Bush administration has brought forth a perfect storm of callousness and cluelessness that is laying waste to many of the progressive policies of the 20th century, and that storm shows no signs of subsiding.
This is an administration whose recently drafted budget includes cuts for food stamps and housing subsidies, while continuing to bankrupt the treasury with its "leave no billionaire behind" tax cuts in a time of war.
It is beyond ironic that the last superpower on this planet is also the only developed country not to provide universal health insurance to its people. It is a disgrace.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, "This country will not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in." We've got a long way to go. Now that's something we should all get our hackles up about.
