THE FAILING EMPLOYER-BASED INSURANCE SYSTEM

Cartoon reprinted with permission (Piero Tonin/ www.pierotonin.com)

Employer-based health insurance was a great advance when it was created by the labor movement in the mid-1930s.  It was greatly expanded in the 1940s, during World War II, and reached its peak of coverage in the 1950s.  But it is now a barrier to access to health care for all Americans, including union members.  It is:

• Wasteful. As much as 30% of the cost of health care in this country is spent simply on administering our multi-payer for-profit insurance system.

• Obsolete. It is focused on illness, when the major modern diseases – heart disease, cancer, and stroke – are best dealt with through prevention.

• Costly. Health care expenditures are rising 10% or more each year.

The employer-based insurance system is incapable of controlling costs and ensuring the efficient use of medical technology.

As costs rise, fewer employers are offering health insurance every year, and those that continue to offer it pass on more of the cost to their employees.

Americans spend more on health care than anyone else on earth; in fact, their government spends more, per capita, than any other country. And yet our health statistics are comparatively poor—life expectancy in the U.S. is 27th in the world – and 45 million people were without any health insurance last year.

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