Kenmore Undressed

If You Have a Job, Do You Receive Health Insurance?

More Working Americans Are Becoming Uninsured

A recent article published by The Center for American Progress revealed another one of those “inconvenient” truths about the American health care system:

“The most recent census data, reports that 60 percent of uninsured adults in the United States are employed—that’s 23 million of the 38 million adults who were uninsured in 2008.”

The article entitled “Interactive Map: American Workers Are Rapidly Losing Health Coverage” is worth reading in order to get a better perspective of the upcoming battle in the U.S. Senate over health reform legislation. The article also includes an interactive map of the U.S. showing the percentages of working Americans who have no health care:

The truth is, businesses are finding it impractical and unaffordable to offer health care coverage to their employees and this trend will continue unless some sort of meaningful health care reform is enacted in the U.S..

One of the biggest misconceptions that Americans have about our health care system is that there’s something “sacred” about the “employer-based” coverage that most of us have. Unfortunately, this notion is probably one of the hardest concepts to explain in context. The fact is, the “employer-based” system in the U.S. was an accident of history. The short version is as follows:

During WWII companies experienced a huge labor shortage. Also, there were wage freezes that made it hard to compete for employees. As a result, employers offered other “benefits” such as health insurance to attract workers. This was also a benefit  to employers because the health care benefits could be offered “tax free.”

And there you have it in a nutshell. Basically, the system of offering health care benefits worked in the U.S. for several decades but, given the challenges of the 21st Century, it is imperative that the system be re-engineered. This is not to say that employer based health care coverage is bad. On the contrary, Germany has one of the most admired national health care systems which is both private and employer-based (note: NOT socialized).

I realize that there are those who believe all of this is nothing more than “a government takeover of health care.” Personally, I find that argument baseless. Most of the premiere national health care systems in the world (France, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, Switzerland, etc.) are not “government” run. Health care in these countries is administered by the private sector. This is why I occasionally write about the health care “debate.” There is far too much misinformation and propaganda surrounding this issue and want to try and understand how we can become a better country. To me, this is the right thing to do for all the right reasons.

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