Employers dropping Health Care

[irishbobcat]

Employer-Provided Health Insurance Drops
Dramatically Among Full-Time Workers
High-quality jobs not immune to unraveling of employer-based system

April 18, 2008

Why do we need the Health Care For All Ohioans Act? Employer-provided health insurance is eroding!

Tighten your grip, because holding on to health care is getting much harder, even if you
have a good job, and a good education, and especially if you are a full-time worker of
prime working age.

"No one is immune to the slow unraveling of the employer-based health insurance
system," said Heidi Shierholz, EPI economist and co-author of the report A Decade of
Decline: The Erosion of Employer-Provided Health Care in the United States and
California, 1995-2006, released Yesterday by the Economic Policy Institute.

Overall, about 6.4 million fewer workers had employer-provided health insurance in
2006 than in 2000. This trend contrasts with the time period between 1995 and 2000,
when the share of workers covered by their employers increased nationally, from 49.6
percent to 51.1 percent.

This dramatic loss of employer-provided health insurance since 2000 is not simply driven
by the loss of high-quality jobs, such as those in the manufacturing sector. Rather, it is
caused by the significant decline in employers providing coverage within existing jobs
across the board. The burden of these employer cuts is not carried by part-time or
marginal workers. Rather, the most dramatic loss is among workers with the strongest
connection to the labor force.

"The kind of declines our research uncovered can't be fixed with a band-aid approach,"
said EPI senior economist Jared Bernstein, and the report's co-author. "The solution must
involve a broadly shared, national approach where employers, employees, and
government all play a part."

Among the main findings of the report are:
·  The dramatic drop in employer-provided coverage is caused by employers cutting
coverage within existing jobs, rather than the shifting of jobs from high-coverage
industries like manufacturing to lower-coverage industries.
·  Coverage declined for workers across the entire age and education spectrum.

The national trends were mirrored in developments in California, even though California
differs significantly from the national profile in its racial, ethnic and immigration
makeup. Despite these differences, virtually all California groups made gains in
employer coverage in the late 1990s, gains that were more than wiped out in the 2000s.

As the Independent Green Party Candidate for State Representative for the 60th District, this is the exact reason why I support the Health Care for All Ohioans Act.

Ohio Economy Needs Small Business and Small Business Needs Single-Payer Health Coverage!
     
Small business and the self-employed are driving Ohio's growing service economy to everyone's advantage, providing jobs for their communities, paying wages to their neighbors, and creating income and tax revenues that stay in the local area. Our economy needs these small businesses to help generate the recovery from the continued disastrous loss of our manufacturing base. The single largest obstacle to the success of small business operators is the prohibitive cost of providing health care coverage for themselves and their employees, and the inability to gauge future costs. Competitive wages, safe and reasonable working conditions and health care coverage are central to mutually beneficial relationships between employers and employees. These relationships were typical of collective bargaining between unions and companies, and are once again possible on a broader scale thanks to the Health Care for All Ohioans Act. 
     
At the root of successful employer/employee cooperation is the elimination of adversarial conditions that pit workers against owners, as is the situation with rising, unaffordable health care costs, currently the main point of contention in every bargaining situation. For the self-employed, who are providing health care coverage for themselves and their families without the benefit of real collectives, The Health Care for All Ohioans Act provides immediate relief by creating access to comprehensive, affordable healthcare with a fixed, fair, progressive gross receipts tax. For businesses that primarily generate their receipts through service labor provided, the savings are dramatic. For many the resulting savings can then be reinvested in the business, increasing revenue and creating jobs with no increase in costs over that of privately provided for-profit coverage. For small businesses with payrolls, in addition to the gross receipts tax, the funding formula of the Health Care for All Ohioans Act provides for an affordable, fixed, progressive employer-paid payroll tax that increases only as payrolls increase. Successful businessmen and women know that increased revenues and increased payrolls can result in increased profits.
   
We have dug the healthcare hole very deep, the solution will be expensive and no one wants cheap healthcare anyway, only accessible, affordable healthcare coverage. It is time for bold, innovative steps to solve this problem that will affect every one of us eventually.  For the first time businesses will have the opportunity to determine their future healthcare costs due to the fixed rates of the funding formula. Ask a business person if they would support a plan that would allow them to project their healthcare costs for the next five years, even taking into account possible increased initial cost.  The answer you will get is a resounding, YES!  Businesses prefer steady financial forecasts, workers prefer job security and job creation to day-to-day employment, and all parties prefer a mutually beneficial, respectful relationship. Predictable healthcare costs encourage business to grow, workers to thrive and collective bargaining to be successful. The Health Care for All Ohioans Act is a winner for us all.

The Formula to Remember :

Healthcare Savings=Job Creation=Increased Revenues=Increased Wages=Increased Production=Increased Profits=increased tax revenues.  Add Them All Together = Increased Wellness....Health Care for All Ohioans!

Bob Hagan takes money from insurance lobbyists and PACS so he will do nothing when your employer health coverage collapses. It's time to elect a state representative who will say no to health care lobbyists and PAC donations and will support the Health Care for all Ohioans Act to safe guard all Ohioans when it come to health care coverage.

Dennis Spisak-Independent Green Party Candidate for State Representative-60th district

Campaign web site: Http://votespisak.tripod.com

Visit our link to health care and progressive job programs.