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Quote by: Osborn F Enready  Mandating employers provide healthcare is a mistake I think. Employees should be able to make enough to provide their own insurance for themselves, from the company and providers they choose that best suit their needs.
Wages can, and should be used as production motivation factor for individual employees. |
But wages in many industries aren't keeping pace with cost of living in America, making larger insurance pools set up through employers the only economical private means of delivering affordable health insurance. Even with employer insurance coverage, about 40 million Americans remain uninsured, and millions more are underinsured.
Therefore, while employers currently must bear some of the insurance burden in our medical system, they have a vested interest in employing the healthiest people. Alcoholics, for example, can and do lose their jobs. Obese and overweight people have statistically higher chances of getting diabetes and other expensive health problems, which affect everyone's health insurance premiums.
Of course, firing the overweight and obese doesn't solve the underlying problem. That's why HMOs and employer insurance schemes, while better than nothing, are failing. At some point our nation will extend some version of Medicare to the entire population, and the current national polls (including a majority of US physicians) reflect that trend.
Most Support U.S. Guarantee Of Health Care - New York Times
Support for national health insurance among U.S. p...[Ann Intern Med. 2003] - PubMed Result
Momentum Grows On Health Care - January 9, 2007 - The New York Sun
Universal Health Coverage Attracts New Support - washingtonpost.com