Big business backs health insurance
January 30, 2008
As presidential candidates push their plans to makeover the nation's health-care system, some of America's largest employers presented their own suggested fix Wednesday.
Every adult American should be required to purchase health insurance coverage for themselves and their children on a tax-advantaged basis, but it shouldn't be incumbent on business owners to offer or pay for it, according to the National Business Group on Health, or NBGH, a non-profit association of nearly 300 large employers, including General Motors and Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Instead, the NBGH is advocating that individuals who purchase their own policies should be given the same tax advantages as workers under employer-sponsored group health plans, which the NBGH says is the main reason why many American families covered by these plans have access to affordable coverage. Employers who offer group health insurance can write off these benefits for tax purposes, and the money doesn't count as taxable income for the employees.
By contrast, an employee who purchases their own coverage -- because their employer doesn't offer health benefits -- must pay income taxes on it. Since 2003, the self-employed can take a tax deduction when they take out their own coverage.
But to achieve universal coverage, states and federal governments need to work together with insurers and employers to develop insurance options that meet the medical needs and budgets of American families, according to the NBGH which sets out 20 conditions that would need to be met to meet such a goal.
"With health costs continuing to rise, a weak economy and the number of uninsured Americans growing at an alarming pace, the need to reform our health care system is at an all-time high," said NBGH President Helen Darling.
"Achieving successful health reform, however, is a tremendous challenge that will require individuals, health care providers, insurers, employers and governments at all levels to take on shared responsibility. No one group can or should bear full responsibility," she says.
Proponents of individual mandates say they respond to concerns about uninsured people who receive treatment when they're sick but pass on its cost to taxpayers or individuals with insurance. Requiring everyone to have coverage will strengthen and stabilize insurance risk pools by including more healthy people -- who are the most likely to risk going without insurance -- eventually driving down the costs for all, they say. However, critics say implementing an individual mandate could be costly and impractical as it would require new layers of bureaucracy to enforce.
Some 177 million Americans get their health insurance through their employers, making job-based coverage the most common source of coverage. Large companies continue to view health benefits as a key tool for recruitment and retention and 98 percent of firms with over 200 workers offer health coverage to employees, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers' Health Research Institute. However, the cost of annual premiums has almost doubled since 2000 to $12,106 for family coverage and $4,479 for an individual, damaging corporate competitiveness in the global economy.
References : http://www.businessweek.com/
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