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In My Opinion: Corporate Health Care "Free-riders" Drive Up Costs
The number of Americans without health care coverage now has risen to 45 million, as mounting joblessness and double-digit medical inflation squeezes more and more families out of the system.
There are several factors behind rising health costs, but one of the biggest is the burden of subsidizing care for the uninsured, which is reflected in insurance premium increases passed along to companies and individuals. The millions without health coverage - and many if not most have permanent jobs - are forced to use hospital emergency rooms and community clinics for primary care but can't afford to pay for the treatment. The costs of their care send premiums soaring for everyone else.
It's becoming a vicious cycle - as medical costs rise, more employers drop benefits or shift costs to the point that workers and retirees can't afford their share of premiums; the result, even more uninsured and a growing national cost crisis.
For the responsible - mainly unionized - employers that provide quality health care benefits for their workers, the price of subsidizing the system for everyone else is substantial.
Joining with me and others at a press briefing of the National Coalition on Health Care, SBC President Bill Daley said his company's employee health care costs have now risen to $2.2 billion annually and are expected to grow another billion over the next three years (see xxx).
It's well established that 25 percent of telecommunications health care expenses come from carrying the burden of the nation's uninsured. In the case of SBC, those added costs amount to $550 million - or nearly 10 percent of the company's $5.7 billion in profits last year. The same picture applies to the other major union telecom companies.
Some of the companies that SBC and others are carrying on their backs are direct competitors - startups that are skimming the cream in telecom reselling as well as the predatory MCI/WorldCom with its substandard worker benefits.
Talk about an "un-level playing field!" This is the term the telecom CEOs repeatedly use as they run around giving speeches and lobbying regulators and legislators to end competitive restrictions, such as having to lease phone lines to competitors at or below cost.
But what about the inequity of paying an extra half-billion dollars a year because other employers refuse to provide health care? For that kind of money, you would think these executives would be focused like a laser on fixing this broken system.
I'm glad that SBC, Verizon, Bell South, Qwest and AT&T are joining us on the National Coalition on Health Care along with 100 other corporations and organizations concerned about the crisis. But I hope that they also will join us in vocally and actively pressing for real reforms.
The obvious answer to the inequities of our health system, which essentially is employer-based, is to require all employers of reasonable size to pay their fair share and provide workers a minimum standard of health coverage.
While our union employers privately support this since it would save them millions, in the past they have refused to stand up and be counted because, they whisper to us, many of those free-riding companies are their customers and they fear antagonizing them. The silence from the telecom executives also has been deafening on the issue of providing a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare, which also would save them enormous sums. Apparently they are reluctant to openly oppose conservative ideologues on this issue.
CWA employers, including General Electric, Disney/ABC, major newspapers, US Airways, state and city governments and others, along with the telecom industry, do face a huge burden with today's soaring health costs. But the solution isn't in trying to pass the costs down the food chain to their workers. Cost-shifting doesn't address the root problem, and it only sows the seeds of anger and confrontation.
Instead, we call on our employers to join with us in spotlighting the real causes of this crisis and in standing for real solutions and a system of quality care with universal coverage.
CWA is supporting a bill in California, SB 2, that requires employers to provide quality health and drug coverage for workers and dependents and to pay at least 80 percent of the premium costs. The bill is intended to bring coverage to more than 6 million uninsured and "create a level playing field for all businesses in California."
This bill is an excellent first step and a model for the entire country. I recently wrote to SBC's Daley and Verizon President and CEO Ivan Seidenberg urging support of the measure since it would greatly reduce both companies' health costs. To Seidenberg I noted: "It is likely that some of your business customers that do not provide health care to their employees will oppose it, satisfied that you and others who are doing the right thing will carry the load. On the other hand, the union and your employees support the bill because it is good for Verizon and the state. Which side will Verizon come down on?"
That's the question we will be putting to every one of our employers who are expressing concern over health care costs.
There are several factors behind rising health costs, but one of the biggest is the burden of subsidizing care for the uninsured, which is reflected in insurance premium increases passed along to companies and individuals. The millions without health coverage - and many if not most have permanent jobs - are forced to use hospital emergency rooms and community clinics for primary care but can't afford to pay for the treatment. The costs of their care send premiums soaring for everyone else.
It's becoming a vicious cycle - as medical costs rise, more employers drop benefits or shift costs to the point that workers and retirees can't afford their share of premiums; the result, even more uninsured and a growing national cost crisis.
For the responsible - mainly unionized - employers that provide quality health care benefits for their workers, the price of subsidizing the system for everyone else is substantial.
Joining with me and others at a press briefing of the National Coalition on Health Care, SBC President Bill Daley said his company's employee health care costs have now risen to $2.2 billion annually and are expected to grow another billion over the next three years (see xxx).
It's well established that 25 percent of telecommunications health care expenses come from carrying the burden of the nation's uninsured. In the case of SBC, those added costs amount to $550 million - or nearly 10 percent of the company's $5.7 billion in profits last year. The same picture applies to the other major union telecom companies.
Some of the companies that SBC and others are carrying on their backs are direct competitors - startups that are skimming the cream in telecom reselling as well as the predatory MCI/WorldCom with its substandard worker benefits.
Talk about an "un-level playing field!" This is the term the telecom CEOs repeatedly use as they run around giving speeches and lobbying regulators and legislators to end competitive restrictions, such as having to lease phone lines to competitors at or below cost.
But what about the inequity of paying an extra half-billion dollars a year because other employers refuse to provide health care? For that kind of money, you would think these executives would be focused like a laser on fixing this broken system.
I'm glad that SBC, Verizon, Bell South, Qwest and AT&T are joining us on the National Coalition on Health Care along with 100 other corporations and organizations concerned about the crisis. But I hope that they also will join us in vocally and actively pressing for real reforms.
The obvious answer to the inequities of our health system, which essentially is employer-based, is to require all employers of reasonable size to pay their fair share and provide workers a minimum standard of health coverage.
While our union employers privately support this since it would save them millions, in the past they have refused to stand up and be counted because, they whisper to us, many of those free-riding companies are their customers and they fear antagonizing them. The silence from the telecom executives also has been deafening on the issue of providing a real prescription drug benefit under Medicare, which also would save them enormous sums. Apparently they are reluctant to openly oppose conservative ideologues on this issue.
CWA employers, including General Electric, Disney/ABC, major newspapers, US Airways, state and city governments and others, along with the telecom industry, do face a huge burden with today's soaring health costs. But the solution isn't in trying to pass the costs down the food chain to their workers. Cost-shifting doesn't address the root problem, and it only sows the seeds of anger and confrontation.
Instead, we call on our employers to join with us in spotlighting the real causes of this crisis and in standing for real solutions and a system of quality care with universal coverage.
CWA is supporting a bill in California, SB 2, that requires employers to provide quality health and drug coverage for workers and dependents and to pay at least 80 percent of the premium costs. The bill is intended to bring coverage to more than 6 million uninsured and "create a level playing field for all businesses in California."
This bill is an excellent first step and a model for the entire country. I recently wrote to SBC's Daley and Verizon President and CEO Ivan Seidenberg urging support of the measure since it would greatly reduce both companies' health costs. To Seidenberg I noted: "It is likely that some of your business customers that do not provide health care to their employees will oppose it, satisfied that you and others who are doing the right thing will carry the load. On the other hand, the union and your employees support the bill because it is good for Verizon and the state. Which side will Verizon come down on?"
That's the question we will be putting to every one of our employers who are expressing concern over health care costs.