Health Insurance

Kevin Drum links to a story that shows how the times, they are a changing. Most Americans get health insurance through their employers, but this is a benefit that is rapidly being eroded. Union boss Andy Stern says:

She has worked every day of her life. Her 16 year old daughter Janelle was having respiratory problems, and the doctor sent her for an x-ray. But because Lisa still owed several hundred dollars from a previous illness, the x-ray was postponed and the doctor said they would just monitor her progress. Three days later—Janelle died. She died in the richest country on earth, even though her Mom worked every day, simply because she was still too poor to afford health care.

This is not the America any of us want.

...

It is time to admit that the employer-based health care system is dead—a relic of the industrial economy. America cannot compete in the new global economy when we are the only industrialized nation on earth that puts the price of healthcare on the cost of our products.

That is a major drag on American business competitiveness, and job creation—and it is a stupid 21st century economic plan as well.

American business by 2008 will pay more for health care than they will make in profits. That is untenable.

The good news is that the solution is no longer a matter of policy, but one politics and leadership.

Today the winds of change are blowing.

This kind of talk from a union leader is hardly news. The news is in the allies he now has. From Kevin's article:

One of the companies joining him is Wal-Mart. Others include Intel, AT&T, and Kelly Services. Details are a little sketchy, but all of these companies -- did I say Wal-Mart was one of them? -- have decided to work together with SEIU to push for universal healthcare (of an undefined nature) by around 2012.

A lot of big businesses are certain to want to shed their own healthcare plans, but their work forces will fight to the death on this issue - unless there is a good, universal plan to take its place.

I say, why wait. Pass a bill next year. Bush will veto it. Then the voters can have their say.

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