Universal Health Care

Universal Health Care

Universal Health Care – Kentucky Facts

• Only 44% of Kentucky residents are reported to have employer-provided health insurance policies for their families in 2016 data. This percentage is down from 54% in 2014 data. – Reference
• Health insurance rates rose 3% with Annual premiums reaching $18,764 for 2017 with employers paying 92% of those premiums. – Reference
• For those buying insurance on an exchange or private market plan for 2017, the average increase before subsidies was a shocking 25 %.
• 6% of Kentuckians have no health coverage of any kind.

Every time a product passes through one business to another the end price increases. Someone collects raw materials and sells them at a profit to a distribution center who then sells them to manufacturers (for a profit). Manufacturers then supply goods or services to a more specialized distributor who then sends them to retailers or consumers. Each time a profit is made, increasing the final cost to consumers like you and me.

“Universal healthcare should cover all preventative, well-care, diagnostic / treatment / medications of ailments, disfigurement correction, geriatric residential care and facilities for persons with disabilities.” – Debbie Payne

The same is true in the insurance market. A parent company develops different levels of coverage for various markets and offers them to their subsidiaries who then sell them to independently owned franchises of the parent company and unaffiliated independent insurance owners who sell underwritten policies and offer them to us.

Everyone in this chain of acquisition is making a profit, except the end consumer. We are paying each of them and most likely never filing a claim on the insurance policy.

A single-payer health care system would eliminate these middleman costs. Medicare is the most cost-efficient health system in the USA, with a less than 3% management costs.

Health insurance benefit costs are the most expensive employee benefit most employees have, coming in at 23% of non-wage costs and 7-8% of overall compensation on average. Many companies now only offer part-time work to avoid the cost of having a benefits package for full-time workers. The result has been 7.6 million, an increase of 2% last year, workers having two or jobs to make enough money to make bills.

A single-payer system would offer immediate relief of the cost of health insurance premiums to employers and encourage the return of full-time work as the norm in hourly wage jobs. Reduced costs of goods all along the supply chain would mean higher wages could be offered to workers without the cost of monthly health insurance costs and that would translate into:

1. More money being put into the local economy and tax base.
2. An increase in the standard of living.
3. A reduction in the cost of services and products.
4. Increased profit for the employer.