Another Chorus in the Health Insurance Song.

The debate on reforming health care has become a shouting match that stifles honest debate by intimidation, a concentrated effort to derail any real change to a very broken system. Regardless of where the political or social motives behind this comes from, the fact is that the current system does not work for the majority of wage-earners, past and future, of this country.
At dinner parties, in the elevators, grabbing a soda at the local mini-mart, I have heard people proclaim that responsible citizens take care of their own insurance needs, that they don't trust reform that begins with the government, that it is up to the individual to make sure they have adequate health insurance. The arguments range from issues of personal responsibility to conviction that health care is not an entitlement, that you can have what you pay for. The voices are loud, drowning out reasonable discussion. Yet, without reasonable discussion, we will continue going in the same direction and getting to the same pile of quicksand that is sucking us into financial disaster.
Currently, the majority of American workers have health insurance through their employers. The cost of this is driving employers to drastic measures as they work to keep costs in line. Benefits get cut, deductibles get increased. I am not a statistician. i am an employee of a small Austin company and I am 60 years old. i would like to retire within five years but in order to have health insurance, I need to keep working until I am 70. The costs associated with this have a system-wide effect that is highly illustrative of how badly we need to fix the entire health care system.
In one year, the difference between my health insurance and that paid for a 30 year old co-worker is $16,800. Over the next ten years, the overall difference for my employer will amount to $294,819. This is based on the assumption that costs will rise 12% a year. With the failures of large companies like AIG, that increase could be 25%. There were sound economic reasons why certain primitive tribes drove their elders out to die or survive on their own. They were an economic drain that threatened the continued existence of the tribe. At what point will the continued spiraling of costs force small employers to make those same kinds of decisions? As long as I can work I will do so and the price of that decision reaches far past healthcare. There will be a younger person who will not rise in position because I am in the way, and another position beneath her that will not open up. The higher cost overall will be the loss of talent to a small business because there is no room for younger staff to grow into more lucrative, senior positions.
Many employers have already made those decisions and do not offer affordable healthcare to their employees. Others have reduced the health care coverage available so they can offer lower consumer prices. A worker at minimum wage may work two jobs a day, each at 5 hours, not covered by health insurance because they work under the minimum hours. That person, after paying for housing, food and necessary living expenses, has about $60 a month left over if it has been a great month with no surprises. There is no cushion for health care coverage. Whether you look at the cost of emergency room medical treatment or the continued cost of health insurance as it exists today, the system is insanely expensive already. Fixing it could easily result in overall cost reduction. We are all paying for increases now through higher hospitalization costs, tiered payments and escalating premium costs.
This subject is too important to mire it down in faulty arguments and selfish viewpoints. Healthcare, like food, is not an entitlement-it is a crucial piece of survival. The lucky and the rich do not have an exclusive right to medical treatment at the expense of others. Follow the trail of your money and you will see that each of us interacts with every other person in this society and that what makes one of us better makes us all better. You are not willing to pay for my health insurance? I'm paying for yours and mine. We all are, through higher premiums, tiered payment arrangements and over-use of emergency rooms. Frankly, I'd like to pay less by sharing the burden in a system better designed.