health insurance

Job-insurance link is strained

(THE NEWS AND OBSERVER) - Bill Atkinson is CEO of WakeMed Health & Hospitals and is on an American Hospital Association task force on health-care reform. He recently began blogging on the hospital’s Web site, www.wakemedvoices.org, about health care and reform. Here is a recent highlight.

Uwe Reinhardt’s recent commentary on CNN.com highlights the economic dangers that threaten the American middle class if efforts to reform the health-care system fail. Reinhardt, a political economy professor at Princeton University, made some very interesting points about the relationship between health insurance and employment in our country.

Reinhardt warns that without health-care reform, “Millions [of middle class Americans] will lose their employment-based insurance … and millions will find themselves inexorably priced out of health care as we know it.” He also points out that companies view health insurance as part of an employee’s compensation package — therefore when costs increase, this financial burden falls on the individual. He’s right. Without reform, many more Americans will find themselves unable to afford health insurance because of the rising costs of health care.

Case in point, a story published in The News & Observer pointed out that health insurance premiums in North Carolina have risen five times faster than salaries over the past decade. With unemployment high, it leads to the question — why is health insurance tied to employment in the first place? Part of the answer is that employment-based insurance in our country has long been based more in tradition than rationality. It was originally a perk — an enticement as part of a larger benefits package that employers offer to attract and retain high quality employees. Now, health insurance premiums are beyond the reach of what many individuals can afford by themselves, making employer sponsored group plans one logical gateway to coverage.

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