Adrianne Shropshire

Taking Health Care Off the Table

While the president is offering up lame excuses for health care reform that will only benefit (surprise) those with enough income to put some aside in health savings accounts, municipalities and states across the country are moving to enact real reform. Employer responsibility is the message of the day and local and state governments are stepping up to address the problem in the absence of federal action.

A report issued by the Washington State Senate found that the state subsidizes Wal-Mart to the tune of $12 million annually for health coverage of their low-paid workers. Maryland passed, over a governor's veto, their "Fair Share" health care bill that will require large employers to pay a minimum toward the health costs of their employers. In California, after "pay or play" went down in flames to a confused electorate, municipalities like San Francisco are stepping into the breach offering legislation that would insure coverage for preventive care.

And here in the Empire State, the New York City Health Care Security Act will insure minimum health care contributions from large and medium groceries beginning July 1 and the Suffolk County Fair Share for Health Care legislation will do the same. On the state level, state Senator Diane Savino is introducing Maryland-style legislation that will cut across industries targeting large companies and the Working Families Party and allies including Jobs With Justice are gearing up for a "Fair Share" battle for this legislative session in Albany.

For workers with a union and especially for those without, health care should be off the table as a bargaining chip. If we are about producing quality jobs in this country health coverage is a part of that package. It is about wages AND benefits not one or the other if upward mobility is truly part and parcel of our American genetic make-up.

Until we arrive in the promised land of national health care, expecting employers to do their fair share to mitigate the impact of the health care crisis is not unreasonable. We live, after all, in an employer-based system and until that changes government must play a role to insure that employers stabilize that system. Individual health care accounts don't cut it.

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Posted at 6:03 AM, Feb 08, 2006 in Health Care | Labor
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