I just did a little net research and came across this. The average annual premium for a health plan covering a single worker was $4,242, while the cost for
family coverage was $11,480. That comes to $956.66 per month to insure a single family.The annual inflation rate of health care at 7.7 percent was more than
double rate of inflation and far higher than the 3.8 percent growth in worker earnings. These are in 2006 figures mind you and don't reflect the current
price spiral due to high oil costs and the housing melt down.
To say that we all should take care of only our own is akin to going back to the days when the Doc made house calls in a horse and buggy and couldn't do much more clean and sew up wounds, set broken bones and give advice to the family on how to make the patient comfortable during recovery. For the most part, time and the patients own immune system provided most of the cure. If not, the patient wasn't long for this world. The family paid the doctor with what ever they had to offer. It may have been cash, firewood or a bushel of apples. Medicine has steadily progressed from that day.We are now in the 21st century. Doctors can now do all sorts of things to save lives but the drugs and equipment to deliver that care are expensive.
After WW11, employers took on the cost burden of providing health insurance for their employees and their families. This was part of an effort to recruit and retain workers that the companies needed to do business. Expansion was high, profits were being made and health insurance as a employee perk was good business. We were the king of the roost. This worked well for three decades or so before globalization entered the world stage. US business could no longer count on being king of every roost and were competing with emerging nations who had a cheaper labor pool or vast raw material resources to draw from. Over the last decade, business has been trying to shed itself of employee costs by slashing benefits or outright off-shoring their business to other places. We are coming to point now where business will want to get out of the employee health care business completely. And what business wants is usually what business gets.
We are currently entering a new frontier in the way health care is delivered and paid for. The new system to replace the current dying model will most likely be some sort of universal health system. It may be delivered by the the private sector, by government, or a hydrid of the two but either entity will provide essentially a similar product. All pay into a pool and will draw from that pool to pay for health care needs. Humans by nature are a collective lot. We snuggled together by a fire in caves to stay safe from night time predators and we depended on each other as a lot for hunting and gathering our food. If we are to be civilized, and I believe we are, we must take care of all of our citizens. We cannot pull into our little ditto head shells and say the hell with the rest of you when pandemic from one part of the world is but a boat or plane ride from our shores.
Mike A
To say that we all should take care of only our own is akin to going back to the days when the Doc made house calls in a horse and buggy and couldn't do much more clean and sew up wounds, set broken bones and give advice to the family on how to make the patient comfortable during recovery. For the most part, time and the patients own immune system provided most of the cure. If not, the patient wasn't long for this world. The family paid the doctor with what ever they had to offer. It may have been cash, firewood or a bushel of apples. Medicine has steadily progressed from that day.We are now in the 21st century. Doctors can now do all sorts of things to save lives but the drugs and equipment to deliver that care are expensive.
After WW11, employers took on the cost burden of providing health insurance for their employees and their families. This was part of an effort to recruit and retain workers that the companies needed to do business. Expansion was high, profits were being made and health insurance as a employee perk was good business. We were the king of the roost. This worked well for three decades or so before globalization entered the world stage. US business could no longer count on being king of every roost and were competing with emerging nations who had a cheaper labor pool or vast raw material resources to draw from. Over the last decade, business has been trying to shed itself of employee costs by slashing benefits or outright off-shoring their business to other places. We are coming to point now where business will want to get out of the employee health care business completely. And what business wants is usually what business gets.
We are currently entering a new frontier in the way health care is delivered and paid for. The new system to replace the current dying model will most likely be some sort of universal health system. It may be delivered by the the private sector, by government, or a hydrid of the two but either entity will provide essentially a similar product. All pay into a pool and will draw from that pool to pay for health care needs. Humans by nature are a collective lot. We snuggled together by a fire in caves to stay safe from night time predators and we depended on each other as a lot for hunting and gathering our food. If we are to be civilized, and I believe we are, we must take care of all of our citizens. We cannot pull into our little ditto head shells and say the hell with the rest of you when pandemic from one part of the world is but a boat or plane ride from our shores.
Mike A
