60 Companies Plan to Sponsor Health Coverage for Uninsured

[LiviaOlivia]

The New York Times
January 27, 2005
60 Companies Plan to Sponsor Health Coverage for Uninsured
By MILT FREUDENHEIM

In a novel attempt to extend health coverage to uninsured workers, 60 large employers are joining together to sponsor an array of low-cost health insurance options. The program, to begin in the fall, will be offered for at least two years and is intended to cover uninsured part-time and temporary workers, contractors, consultants and early retirees, who typically are not eligible for employer health plans.

The sponsors, which include General Electric, I.B.M., McDonald's and Sears, Roebuck, will begin promoting the low-cost plans in April and May to 3 million eligible workers, about 7 percent of the 45 million uninsured Americans. They hope that several hundred thousand people will sign up at the start.

The employers will not subsidize the coverage, but their participation created a pool of potential participants sufficiently large to justify lower insurance rates than individuals would have to pay on their own.

These options, to be offered to part-time employees, are not intended to replace employer-paid health plans that are already in place for full-time workers. The sponsors also acknowledged that these low-cost plans will not by themselves solve the problem of the uninsured.

The plans will range widely in cost from $5 a month for a card that provides users with discounts for doctors and pharmacies to more than $300 a month for a high-deductible plan that covers major medical and hospital expenses.

~snip~

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/business/27care.html

[SoCalDem]

1. The whole country should be spilt into areas, and this should be the norm

There are enough "insurance companies" around to cover us all, and by breaking the whole nation into "areas" and encompassing ALL the citizens of that area, it could be done.

This will probably end up nowhere, because the "advantage" would be with the participants of the groups, and NOT the companies..

Some of you here are too young to remember when insurance companies were about this..They money they took in was in turn spent of people who filed claims.. The pool of people was large enough, and companies back then were not "all about stockholders and investments".. Their PRODUCT was the coverage, and NOT Wall Street ..

[sandnsea]

2. Smoke screen

I can hear it now. "They can get coverage though that United Health corporate plan" So there will be no need for the government to do something about health care.

Low income people cannot afford to pay $300 a month AND their routine doctor bills. It's crap. These companies know it's crap. It's just a slogan for the right wing to spout, nothing more.

Why can I not just buy into one of the good federal health plans we've already got? Easy enough to pass a law, if you sell health insurance to the government you have to offer it to the uninsured at the same rate.

[aquart]

3. Bingo.

Personally, I don't believe healthcare should be linked to employment in any way. It's in the interest of the United State of America to have a healthy population. It is a national interest.

[area51]

4. "It is a national interest."

Exactly. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a sicker, less healthy population than other industrialized countries that are smart enough to have universal healthcare. People here go to work sick b/c (1) they can't afford a dr./time off, & (2) are afraid of losing their jobs in a recession/depression economy where jobs are extremely hard to find. Also, ERs nationwide are pushed past the breaking point due to people using them as a dr. of last resort. We're also a pandemic waiting to happen because of the unaffordability of healthcare. A healthier population would be a more work-efficient population, but you'll never get nazi party members to realize the logic of this.


"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[Ilsa]

8. You mean like it's in the US' interest to have an educated

population and work force?
You are right of course, :thumbsup: and I am being very cynical about both issues this morning.

[Delphinus]

6. We can't afford this.

I've come to the conclusion I'll just have to wait until the very last moment in whatever ails me and hope it kills me so I won't have to pay the hospital bills.

But, on a brighter note, I'm the healthiest person in my "nuclear" family and I'm the only one who doesn't see doctors. My first line of defense is herbs and/or homeopathy. If I get something worse than that, well ... :-)

[ally_sc]

7. the deductiable is to high, and they know it

300 for a deductiable is more than what medicare charges, and is more than what any indvidual can pay...

[sandnsea]

9. $300 is the premium

The monthly premium. For a high deductible policy, probably $5,000 or something. We ought to call it the "death bed" plan because it isn't going to pay for anything unless you're on your death bed.

[Mend]

5. I predict that the amount of money this insurance

will pay for visits, procedures, etc. will be so minuscule, that most doctors won't accept it....the repukes will say that everyone is covered but it will be a sham.

[Massacure]

10. $5 a month to provide discounts is a good thing.

If you already takes meds. The $300 plan is setting my Bushit sensors off.

[OzarkDem]

11. What about full-time workers

Many of them have no health insurance these days.