Reason #2,359 to Support Universal Health Care

American businesses seem to have a never-ending supply of creative ways for dropping people off their health care plans. The latest: employee insurance audits. Big companies have started demanding that employees prove that their dependents are really dependents and eligible for the company health care coverage. Naturally, consulting firms have sprung up to assist with the purges, demanding tax returns, marriage licenses and other personal documents from lowly service workers in the hopes of catching some cheaters, or at least people without good filing systems.

Newhouse News reporter Katherine Reynolds Lewis notes that the Ford Motor Company used audits to drop 80,000 people off its health care plan. Such numbers have apparently inspired a rush to audit. GM is currently auditing its entire 1 million strong workforce. A GM spokesperson told Lewis that the audits were worth the expense: "For every one that we drop, it's about a $1,000 savings," she said. If only the American auto industry managed to devote such innovation to producing cars! At some point, though, the auto makers and other big companies ought to just ask the government to take health care off their hands. At the rate they're going, it won't be long before none of their employees have health insurance anyway. They might as well just make it official and do something constructive about it.

Comments

We have got to make our companies more competitive. We need to find a new way to finance America's addiction to heath care. Why do I call it an addiction? Because millions go to the doctor when they sneeze. It is a disgrace. Drink fluids and go to sleep, not to the doctor when you sneeze!

Posted by: Ames Tiedeman on 01/14/08 at 8:22 AM Respond

I think this country should have universal health care for everybody. Get the insurance companies out of healh care. Run same as Social Security, everybody on it.

Posted by: Dorothy m Kimball on 01/14/08 at 10:21 AM Respond

They did this already at Boeing, and what a pain in the ass it was for me, due to the stepkids having a different last name. I had to do several turns of sending in addtional info - marriage license, divorce settlement (my wife's ex), then tax returns. Greedy f@cking beancounters!

Posted by: Anon on 01/14/08 at 10:48 AM Respond

What about "Universal Healthcare" for all children?

From birth to 18 years old?

We are spending their tax dollars so why not make certain they are healthy enough to work?

How could that be a bad thing?

Posted by: capt on 01/14/08 at 11:32 AM Respond

Ames, can you please provide your source for this claim?

Posted by: robert on 01/14/08 at 11:38 AM Respond

What's wrong with employers auditing files so people don't sign on their sibling's and neighbors' children as their dependents (these are actual examples!!)? That's been part of why healthcare has cost so much for businesses. Allowing some to cheat causes all to pay more.

Government isn't the answer, either. The problem, Dorothy, is that if we ran health care the same as we ran Social Security and Medicare, we'd be facing the same problems as Social Security and Medicare currently face. We as a nation can't afford it.

Posted by: Paul on 01/14/08 at 2:39 PM Respond

I really don't understand why you have so many problems with your healthcare. Here in Denmark, it's been universal for at least the last 50 years, and sure there are problems, just like there are problems in the military or the telecom sector. But all in all, it works. If you get sick, you go to the hospital, they take care of you, end of story.

Posted by: Nikolaj Lykke Nielsen on 01/15/08 at 5:39 AM Respond

thanks..

Posted by: çanakkale on 02/19/08 at 2:08 PM Respond

verry nice..

Posted by: çanakkale on 02/19/08 at 2:09 PM Respond

How could that be a bad thing?

Posted by: bozcaada on 02/19/08 at 2:10 PM Respond