Public employee health care benefits to evaporate
According to two recent articles, one in the New York Times and one in the Wall Street Journal, the federal Government Accounting Standards Board has begun to require municipalities - states, counties, cities - to account for how much it will cost them to provide all the health care promised to present and retired public employees. This process, to be completed over the next 3 years, has already started in states like Alaska, Delaware, Maryland and cities like Duluth, Minnesota and Arlington, Texas.
In response public employers have begun slashing the benefits offered to new hires. Retirees' and current employees' health benefits will be next. A union struggle will be enjoined, as public employee unions face an even more defensive struggle to hold on to health benefits.
As of 2006 new hires in Arlington, Texas will have no retirement health benefits. Alaska, facing a health care cost deficit of $5.7 billion, pushed new employees into high deductable/HSA "health savings account" schemes (after some heavy lobbying from the White House). Thankfully, the state constitution protected the benefits of current state workers. In Michigan legislation is being prepared that will shift health care costs onto the retirees, period.
It might be tempting to imagine that this phantom emerged because of neo-conservative sourcery, as in Grover Norquist's desire to shrink the government to a size where he might "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub," or George Bush's call for an each-against-all "ownership society." But the fact is that health care costs for all employers, public as well as private, have grown increasingly impossible as health insurance premiums and drug costs continue to escalate.
As Uwe Reinhardt's quip that the big three auto makers are "basically social insurance systems" that sell cars, Mayor Herb Bergson says here of Duluth: "The city isn't going to function because it's just going to be in the health care business."
The wholesale effort on the part of employers - public as well as private - to shift costs onto individuals is under full steam because the existing non-system leaves employers no other choice. Whether employed by a large corporation or a large state, a small city or a small shopkeeper, no employee or retiree will be spared. Behind this wave will be an eddy in which we will soon see the ranks of the uninsured (and the bankrupt!) burgeon - for individually we will simply not be able to meet the costs of our insurance, let alone our sick care.
I think that what is most important for PNHP and other health care reform activists to note about these articles are what they say about the tempo of change. The health care meltdown is accelerating rapidly. This disintegration will be played out not in the coming years but in the coming months.
As this crisis gathers momentum its noise begins to coalesce as a counterpoint harmony and rhythm that leave the single-payer national health insurance solution the only melody to sing - and what an inspiring tune that is! Public employers and employees should be allowed to refocus their attention to public service. Health care should be equally available to all. National health insurance, including prescription drugs and all necessary medical and dental care, including mental health, hospital and long term care is the only workable solution.
Andrew D. Coates, MD
In response public employers have begun slashing the benefits offered to new hires. Retirees' and current employees' health benefits will be next. A union struggle will be enjoined, as public employee unions face an even more defensive struggle to hold on to health benefits.
As of 2006 new hires in Arlington, Texas will have no retirement health benefits. Alaska, facing a health care cost deficit of $5.7 billion, pushed new employees into high deductable/HSA "health savings account" schemes (after some heavy lobbying from the White House). Thankfully, the state constitution protected the benefits of current state workers. In Michigan legislation is being prepared that will shift health care costs onto the retirees, period.
It might be tempting to imagine that this phantom emerged because of neo-conservative sourcery, as in Grover Norquist's desire to shrink the government to a size where he might "drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub," or George Bush's call for an each-against-all "ownership society." But the fact is that health care costs for all employers, public as well as private, have grown increasingly impossible as health insurance premiums and drug costs continue to escalate.
As Uwe Reinhardt's quip that the big three auto makers are "basically social insurance systems" that sell cars, Mayor Herb Bergson says here of Duluth: "The city isn't going to function because it's just going to be in the health care business."
The wholesale effort on the part of employers - public as well as private - to shift costs onto individuals is under full steam because the existing non-system leaves employers no other choice. Whether employed by a large corporation or a large state, a small city or a small shopkeeper, no employee or retiree will be spared. Behind this wave will be an eddy in which we will soon see the ranks of the uninsured (and the bankrupt!) burgeon - for individually we will simply not be able to meet the costs of our insurance, let alone our sick care.
I think that what is most important for PNHP and other health care reform activists to note about these articles are what they say about the tempo of change. The health care meltdown is accelerating rapidly. This disintegration will be played out not in the coming years but in the coming months.
As this crisis gathers momentum its noise begins to coalesce as a counterpoint harmony and rhythm that leave the single-payer national health insurance solution the only melody to sing - and what an inspiring tune that is! Public employers and employees should be allowed to refocus their attention to public service. Health care should be equally available to all. National health insurance, including prescription drugs and all necessary medical and dental care, including mental health, hospital and long term care is the only workable solution.
Andrew D. Coates, MD
posted by Andy at Thursday, December 15, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home