Health Insurance and Employers (Rough Draft) Jenry Martin
ENG122: English Composition II Instructor: Brandon Bond
January 22, 2016
Health insurance and employer’s providing insurance benefits for their employee’s has been a debate for a long time. Everyone is asking who should pay for it and who shouldn’t. From my point the employer should pay for health insurance. Why? It is simple, starting with the point that the majority of all the employers are paying low wage salaries to their employees. Also, they are only giving part time jobs. Thus, employers need to give a good reason and incentives like health care insurance that
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For instance, employees would have less absenteeism; they would be less stressed and happier knowing they have peace on mind that they and their families are covered by a good health care insurance plan. Also, knowing they can receive regular checkups and go to the hospital if needed without begin scared of the high costs. “The Obamacare Affordable Care Act average cost for a family of five will cost around 20,000.00 dollars a year," said Sireesha Manne, a staff attorney at the New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty. ” (JAMA: Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 7/28/2015; 314(4): 366374. (9p). The question is now, how does a low-wage family supposed to be able to pay for insurance? How are they going to feed their children, and pay their bills if they have to pay these high costs? It has been said that in 2013 over 3 million dependents were not able to afford an employer based, or an insurance plan purchased through the marketplace If an employer is not going to raise their employee’s hourly wage then they should pay for insurance. Why? It is true that employees spend most of their time at work than at home. They work at least 30-40 hours or more in a whole week to make the big companies wealthy. That in turn, should be enough to compensate them much better. An employee’s health should be the most important factor for an employer. When an employee calls out sick it directly affects the operation and growth of the company.
Rising health insurance premiums have made healthcare unaffordable in the United States. Health insurance premiums in this country have undergone a steady rise over the past few years while incomes have remained the same. More than 50% of individuals with low incomes holding private insurance in the United States are unable to afford their healthcare costs (Collins, Gunja, Doty & Buetel, 2015). In addition, costs related to healthcare are equally unaffordable to 25% of working-age individuals who hold private health insurance policies (Collins et al., 2015). According to the Kaiser Family Foundation/Health Research and Educational Trust (Kaiser/HRET) survey on employer health benefits, employer-sponsored health insurance plans have also had moderate rises in premiums in 2013 for both individuals and family coverage (Claxton et al., 2013). While
It’s also good practice to conduct a return to work interview with anyone who has been absent due to ill health after any period of illness. Employees should be asked to explain any inconsistencies between the reason given for their absence and any observed behaviour. Only if an employee cannot give a satisfactory explanation should disciplinary action being taken.
In 1954, Congress passed legislation allowing employers to provide health insurance benefits to employees on a tax-free basis (Sih and Singh 99). This legal provision marked the beginning of the rapidly expanding health care costs still apparent today due to the major incentives provided by the government to obtain employer-based health coverage. The overwhelming popularity of employer-based health insurance has led to a serious market inefficiency resulting from the system of third-party payment. As individuals rely on their insurance companies to pay for their medical expenses, this provides
were already providing health insurance because we’re in a competitive market and that helps us to retain and recruit good employees,” the Sacramento-based small business owner said, . One benefit for small businesses are tax credits“For us it was just good business. But pretty quickly we saw that our firm could benefit from the law. What appealed to us about the ACA were the tax credits and other financial incentives” (Taylor, 3), “A tax credit is an amount of money a taxpayer is able to subtract from taxes owed to the government” (investopedia.com , 1). this is good because businesses that barely make any money don't have to pay much taxes and they can maybe get more popularity due to the money they are saving. This is one example of how the ACA helps Small Businesses since …“ObamaCare creates the Small Business Health Options Program or SHOP, a part of each State’s Health Insurance Marketplace, where small businesses with 50 full-time equivalent employees or fewer can shop for group health plans. Starting on November 15th, 2015 those with 100 full-timers or less can use the SHOP” (www.obamacarefacts.com ,2 ). Small businesses are not required to provide health insurance to their employees if they wish because “... the answer is no. Under the Affordable Care Act, businesses with fewer than 50 full-time equivalent employees are not required to provide health insurance to their employees, and those employers will not face tax penalties if they decide not to offer their employees health insurance” (resources.ehealthinsurance.com, 1).This is good that very small businesses have the freedom not to get insurance because some businesses need to save money because of the expensive previous health care. Despite it being affordable, ObamaCare has given the freedom for small businesses to not give healthcare to employees. “Since health insurance for small business isn’t mandatory under the ACA, small
One of the many reasons that people like about the Obamacare Act was that more people who would be able to have insurance. Before the act, there were several people who were not able to afford insurance to where they would covered in a case of tragic accident were to occur. According to the website, Obamacarefacts, it states that “Before the ACA, about 38 million Americans had inadequate health insurance.” So with the help of the act people will able to buy a policy for a certain price they could be able to handle. With the Medicaid extending into Obamacare, people who did not have enough money to have insurance or qualify for it, would now be able to get Medicaid insurance to where they wouldn’t have to pay for. (CCH, 52). This was very important because the people whose income was very low that were not able to pay for insurance deals or the penalties were protected from them. Their families would be safe in case of a tragic event and would help with if they
When the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, became a law, one of the requirements of that law was that large employers (Obamacare, 2015) i.e., an employer with fifty or greater employees must provide health care for their employees or face penalties (in year 2016 that penalty will be $3,000 per full time employee). In addition, individuals not covered by an employer provided health plan must pay for their own health insurance (HealthCare, 2015), or they will be penalized financially. As stated in (HealthCare, 2015), the penalty is calculated two different ways – as a percentage of your household income, and per person. You’ll pay whichever is higher.
However, the major changes come with huge monetary costs. Even with huge increases in taxes the government will not be able to pay for it. Obamacare requires all businesses to provide insurance; if the business chooses not to they must pay a penalty. The quantity of the penalty is less than the cost of insurance; so many businesses opt out of providing insurance plans. If employees do not receive insurance through their workplace, they must buy insurance plans on the exchanges. The plans provided on the exchanges are heavily subsidized in order to make sure that they are affordable for the average American. When more Americans buy from the exchanges the government must provide more subsidized plans, creating a huge expense for the
Most of the uninsured go without health coverage because they can’t afford it, and they would purchase it if they could” (APHA, 2012). Because of the lack of medical doctors, the fees for medical treatments and preventions are extremely high, there are many people could not afford it. According to Jonathan Gruber, in the book Health Care Reform: What it is, Why it’s Necessary, How it Works, he mentioned that people who work in large companies will have their insurance covered, but for individuals who are working for small companies but earns more than those who can get Medicaid, will have to buy their own insurance. Usually these insurances are not cheap, and once they use the insurance once, the insurance companies will raise their insurance price or find ways to kick them out of the insurance coverage. In this case, ACA will “reduce premium costs for millions of working families and small businesses by providing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax relief …also reduces what families will have to pay for health care by capping out-of-pocket expenses and requiring preventive care to be fully covered without any out-of-pocket expense…Americans without insurance coverage will be able to choose the insurance coverage that works best for them in a new open, competitive insurance market… keeps insurance companies honest by setting clear rules that rein in the worst insurance
The propose of this article is to present the advantages and disadvantages of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare which make all Americans insurable, by requiring insurers to accept all applicants at rates based on population averages regardless of health status. The ACA increases coverage by allowing states to expand Medicaid (the social healthcare program for families and people with low income and resources) as well to cover everyone near the poverty line, and by subsidizing private insurance for people who do not get workplace coverage (Mark A Hall, Richard Lord, 2016)
Obamacare has drastically raised health care costs for individuals and families. One of the reasons Obamacare was established was to reduce family premiums by $2,500 a year (Anderson 1). However, this goal has not been accomplished yet, the typical family premiums are increasing at rapid rates (Anderson 2). From 2015-2016, Family Silver, one of the most popular family insurance plans, had a ten percent increase on their premiums price. Some states even rose by forty percent (Furchtgott-Roth 3). Middle class families cannot keep paying an arm and a leg for health insurance. Health insurance should not be a major issue for Americans, it should be
Replacing Obamacare with something that works much better and gives people more freedom to choose options that works for their finances won’t be free (Graham, 2017). This means that, there are more affordable health plans out there that can be better for people that cannot afford the Obamacare… another cheaper health care that will have a better coast. There are many parents that need something more affordable health insurance for their children. So they can make sure that they have coverage on their self and their children as well. In the United States, there are young families that can be given a change to save up money before getting the health insurance. A replacement for Obamacare could give young modest-income families the chance to set aside some savings for health expenses (Graham, 2017). It’s always important to save money because; people may not know when they are going to need money to pay for medical expensive in case something ever
If you work for a company and are employed on a part time basis, beware! Due to mandates going into force by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act for employers, anyone working less than 30 hours most likely is going to go without health benefits at some point. PPACA, originally proposed as a way to help control health care costs, quickly morphed into a vehicle to control the insurance market. Regardless of your political bent, the end result of PPACA is that millions of employees are losing their insurance coverage. What the @%&#!!!
There are Currently 32 million people without health insurance in the United States. This means that roughly 83 per cent of citizens have to live day by day hoping they won’t get sick. For this reason, President Obama signed the U.S health reform bill into law. The health reform will make health care more affordable for citizens. Employers with more than 50 employees will be forced to provide coverage for all, or they will have to pay a fine. It will also make health insures more responsible. For example, health insurance carriers are forbidden from placing lifetime dollar limits on policies, from denying coverage to children because of pre-existing conditions, and from canceling policies because someone gets sick. It will also expand
It was stated earlier in this paper that big businesses would benefit from this law; however, the exact opposite is true for small businesses. Businesses will be forced to provide healthcare for their employees or pay a fine, something they may not be able to afford. This may result in employees’ hours being cut or even the termination of the employee (“ObamaCare”).
Moreover, the benefits of expanding coverage outweigh the costs for added services. [4] Safety-net care from hospitals and clinics improves access to care but does not fully substitute for health insurance. These findings are supported by much research, although some cautions are appropriate in using these results. People with health insurance are protected against uncertain and high medical expenses and are more likely to receive needed and appropriate health care. In addition, having health insurance is associated with improved health outcomes and lower mortality, so employees with health insurance are more likely to be productive workers. You do not pay income tax on health insurance benefits so it is more valuable per dollar than the same amount in taxable pay. [5]