Financing: Fair and Shared by All

Our broken health-care system and skyrocketing costs are pushing us all -- individuals, employers and government -- to the brink. Now that we have arrived at the most difficult point in the health-care reform debate -- figuring out how to pay for it -- we must remember that problems that impact everybody require solutions that involve everybody.

Financing health-care reform should be equitable, broad-based and shared by government, employers, and individuals.

A requirement that individuals obtain coverage can play a critical role in keeping overall health care affordable. A step in this direction ensures everyone is both paying their fair share and getting timely and preventive care that reduces total system costs in the long run.

However, an individual mandate can only work if there are adequate subsidies to ensure that people can afford to get coverage. Some proposals to provide subsidies only up to 300 percent of the poverty level would leave many middle-income older Americans without affordable options.

Hardship exemptions from such a mandate -- leaving people without coverage -- provide cold comfort for our 50-64 year-old members, an age group that is most in need of care. Many of these Americans are left with two options: either get needed health care that they cannot pay for, which transfers those costs to people who do have insurance; or forgo needed health care, which results in worse health outcomes that require more services when they enter Medicare, costing more to taxpayers in the long run.

If this is going to work, it is becoming increasingly clear that all stakeholders -- including employers -- must be required to pay their fair share of the financial burden in making coverage affordable.

Health reform legislation should include an employer responsibility requirement to either provide employees with coverage or pay a fee, with reasonable exceptions and/or subsidies for the smallest firms. This allows for funding to make coverage affordable for everyone -- a primary goal of health reform on which we all agree; and a way to ensure financial support that provides the level of subsidies needed to make an individual mandate fair and effective.

By Nancy LeaMond  |  July 10, 2009; 5:50 PM ET  | Category:  Insurance
Share This: Technorati | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook
Previous: Mandatory Coverage: Rock and a Hard Place | Next: Time to Bear the Burden

The comments to this entry are closed.