Month in Review
September 2014
For Businesses that Want to Cover Employees
HERE’S HOW SINGLE PAYER CAN HELP
In April, the Denver Post reported that Jim Noon, owner of Centennial Container, may stop offering employees health care coverage for the first time in three decades. Last year, an insurance company issued Noon an early renewal offer at an 8.6% premium increase until the end of 2014. To comply with 2015 law and cover birth control, the insurance company is going to charge 50% more, according to documents Noon received.
About half of Colorado small businesses are being charged single-digit increases as in previous years, but the other half are being hit with double-digit premium increases, according to Jim Sugden, small-business marketplace manager for Colorado’s exchange.
SINGLE-PAYER CUTS COSTS IN 2 WAYS:
1) It gets shareholder profits out of health care to reduce the cost.
2) Business owners no longer have to negotiate with a health insurance cartel (a combination of independent commercial or industrial enterprises designed to limit competition or fix prices).
Single Payer IS ALREADY SUCCEEDING
Just Not Here at Home
This March, experts from Canada, Denmark, Taiwan and other countries testified at Washington, DC, congressional hearings how single payer can tear down barriers to quality health care that plague the U.S.
From Canada, Dr. Danielle Martin, V.P. of medical affairs and health system solutions at Women’s College Hospital, found access to care, quality of care and costs in Canada were superior to that in the U.S.
Professor Jakob Kjellberg, from the Danish Institute for Local and Regional Government Research, compared Denmark’s administrative costs at 4.3 % of total health care spending to average U.S. costs of 31%. Denmark led the 2013 World Happiness Report and Canada took 6th place. The U.S., 17th, trailed Mexico.
Single Payer FILLS THE GAPS
Our plan, the Colorado Health Security Act, is a true single-payer plan that maximizes funding to directly provide health care to all Colorado citizens. Learn more at http://www.hcacfoundation.org/what_we_do_hcacf
Single payer is comprehensive. It includes:
- All medical
- All hospital
- Eye care
- Dental care
- Long-term care
- Mental health services and
- Co-payments, deductibles and uncovered services WOULD BE GONE.
Will Single Payer Raise Taxes?
About 60% of our health care system is financed by federal and state taxes, property taxes and tax subsidies. That’s coverage for elected officials, military personnel, public employees like police and teachers, Medicaid and Medicare, the VA, etc.
Employers get hefty tax subsidies for employee health insurance. Private employers only pay 21% of health care costs.
Around 20% of health care is paid by us individually in the form of co-pays, deductibles, care rejected by insurance companies, and premiums.
With single payer, employers who already offer coverage would, on average, pay less. When all employers cover health benefits, employers won’t be able to get an unfair competitive advantage by cutting those benefits.
Single payer would keep Medicaid and Medicare and use a payroll tax on employers of about 7% and an income tax on individuals of about 2%. The payroll tax would replace all other employer health care costs for employees.
The income tax would replace insurance premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket payments. For most people, a 2% income tax is less than what they spend on premiums and out-of-pocket costs now.