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Employer-Provided Health Care Coverage Falls for Seventh Year |
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For the seventh year in a row, the number of people in the United States who receive their health care coverage through employer-provided plans declined.
With the nation’s economic outlook growing increasingly bleak, those numbers are likely to slide even further, says Economic Policy Institute (EPI) economist Elise Gould:
The health care problem has reached a critical level. Bold new solutions need to be considered to address the growing crisis.
A new EPI report authored by Gould, The Erosion of Employer Sponsored Health Insurance, shows that since 2000 the percentage of U.S. workers with employer-sponsored insurance dropped form 68.3 percent to 62.9 percent. There were 4.1 million more uninsured workers in 2007 than in 2000.
The report says:
Uninsured workers are disproportionately young, non-white, less educated and low wage; however, workers across the socio-economic spectrum experienced losses in coverage over the 2000–07 period. Even the most highly educated and highest wage workers had lower rates of insurance coverage in 2007 than in 2000.
Under Sen. John McCain’s health care tax proposal, millions more workers could lose their employer-provided coverage. Newsweek economics correspondent Jane Bryant Quinn writes that if McCain’s health care plan was put into effect, it would drop 20 million people from employer coverage and throw them into the shark tank of the private insurance world, and “will raise your costs without changing the game.”
The EPI report looked at employer-sponsored coverage in each state and found that it had fallen significantly in 41 states. The biggest declines since 2000—slightly more than 7 percent in each state—were in Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina and South Carolina.
States with the lowest percentage of workers under age 65 who got their coverage through their jobs are New Mexico (50.7 percent), Texas (53.3 percent) and Mississippi (53.7 percent.). New Hampshire (75.4), Hawaii (7.2.5 percent) and Connecticut (72.3 percent) have the highest rates of employer-paid coverage.
When workers lose their employer-sponsored coverage, so do their children. The report shows 3.4 million fewer children today get health coverage through their parent’s workplace than in 2000.
Coverage by publicly provided health insurance like Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Coverage Program (SCHIP) has increased to take up the slack. Says Gould:
It is only the strength of government programs, particularly those aimed at children, that has insulated many from losses in coverage. The trends indicate a significant shift from private to public coverage, especially among children.
McCain has backed President Bush’s opposition to expanding SCHIP—even as the number of children without health coverage grows—by voting against bills to expands coverage.
Sen. Barack Obama fought to cover more children through SCHIP. He also has proposed a health care plan that cuts costs for families, gives more people access to affordable, high-quality coverage, does not tax health care benefits and allows workers to maintain their employer-provided coverage.
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Medicare can be disbanded when the healthcare issue is addressed for the whole country no just the chronically ill or the elderly. Social security needs to be phased out, not allowed to become insolvent. Many naive citizens are depending on this socialist program. I know my parents are depending in it, god love’em. It would be irresponsible of the government to pull the rug out. In the same respect, the system is at critical mass and amputation is needed to give the critically ill system another 30 years of life before it can be responsibly phased out or revamped with a clear mission statement. A clear mission statement for social security might be something like this; ‘To care for responsible, thrifty citizens who (by no fault of their own) have lived longer than could have reasonably been expected and outlived the savings set aside for basic needs.”
I have written an article on healthcare crisis at http://www.liberty-gazette.com
Please, check it out.
Who is to blame for the destruction of the economy, the unending wars that are impoverishing the people, the destruction of retirement plans and savings?
This mythological capitalism forever blames working people, the victims of a truely run-amok, gangster capitalism. With their savings or income forever minimized or destroyed , how is it possible for average working people to pay greed-based premiums of the health care industry?
MILLIONS OF WORKING PEOPLE DO NOT MAKE MORAL DECISIONS OR LACK RESPONSIBLITY AND MAKE “CHOICES” TO DESTROY THEMSELVES AND THEIR FAMILIES!
The philosophy of Liberty_Gazette reflects the most reactionary and fascist elements of this society. Only the wealthiest will be allowed to “survive”. All those unable to pay the profit-burdened fees of the privatized health care system will simply die off from “natural causes”. It is a genocide of the unprofitable that is taking place in other areas.
OBAMA DOES NOT SUPPORT SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE. BUT OBAMA DOES SUPPORTS A CONTINUED FOR-PROFIT HEALTH CARE
SYSTEM THAT WILL CONTINUE TO BANKRUPT WORKING PEOPLE.
Public education is being systematically under-funded and destroyed. Why?
Not enough money for public services? Why? Because the wealthy don’t want to pay ANY taxes at all! The GAO recently issued a report the most U.S. corporations PAY NO FEDERAL TAXES!
The unending wars of the Bush regime (WHICH WILL BE CONTINUED BY EITHER OBAMA AND McKAIN) , and the vast profits of the military-industrial complex, has almost destroyed the public sector social services ESSENTIAL FOR WORKING PEOPLE TO SURVIVE.
Now, with the 800+ BILLION dollars to fund the CRIMINAL conspiracy of the banking industry, we see the final destruction of working people’s needs for public health systems, free public education, affordable housing, and living wage jobs!
THE UNENDING SUPPORT OF THE AFL-CIO TO THE DEMOCRATS IS AN UNENDING BETRAYAL OF WORKING PEOPLE, ORGANIZED AND UNORGANIZED. A new party representing the needs of all working people is now desperately needed.
Read daily the World Socialist Web Site: http://wsws.org
For example:
Worst week for global markets since 1929
By Barry Grey
11 October 2008
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/glec-o11.shtml
“The events of Friday, culminating two weeks of mounting financial crisis and a flurry of measures by governments to prop up their banking systems at public expense, confront the working people of the world with the prospect of rapidly rising unemployment, poverty and social misery. They raise urgently the need for a coordinated international socialist strategy to defend the interests of the world’s people against the financial elites who are responsible for the unfolding catastrophe and are seeking to impose the burden of the crisis on the working class.”
See also the Socialist Equality Party web-site at
http://www.socialistequality.com
P.S. Link error at end of above comment: The Socialist Equality Party web site link is: http://www.socialequality.com/