SAN DIEGO -- Striking transportation workers in Southern California shut down the nation's third-largest public transportation system Tuesday -- just days after some grocery workers also walked off the job.

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Nationally, health insurance premiums paid by employees have increased by almost 50 percent during the past three years, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care issues. This year alone, premiums are up about 14 percent, with the typical family health insurance policy costing about $9,068.

Employers pay for about 73 percent of that, according to Kaiser. But companies are passing a bigger share on to workers in the form of higher deductibles, more out-of-pocket expenses and bigger co-payments for doctor visits and drugs.

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http://www.ajc.com/business/content/busine...637036679001309

I have a friend in California who patronizes a Kroger supermarket. They were told by an employee that their employer (Kroger) has asked them to pay $5 a week for individual coverage and $60 a month to cover dependants. That would amount to about $80 a month for health care. The company would still pay the bulk.

The employees are striking because they don't want to pay.

I was floored when she told me this. Why would anyone be unwilling to pay for their own insurance? It’s wonderful if your company can provide your health care at no cost to you, but if they can’t, you have to make adjustments. Its called personal responsibility. You do not have the right to free health care.

On the Economy thread, a question was asked about why businesses are leaving the US. One of the factors businesses named is health care.

Do you think it’s too much to ask employees to pay for their health care?

Have we become a society that expects others to provide for our basic needs?

Do you believe our employers should provide free health care?

This seems a bit like a straw man set up. Who is responsible for taking care of me? Well I guess I am.

Now how do I go about doing this?

For some it involves leading a strike when you employer tries to reduce your compensation. Characterizing that reaction to a reduction in benefits as a statement that corporations are responsible for providing health care is like saying that someone who refuses a pay cut is expecting a handout from a company.

We negotiate pay and benefit packages from our employers when we are employees. Generally we expect to make our income grow. When employers ask us to stay on at work with our additional experience and take a reduction in benefits we tend to have a negative response.

However some times things spiral out of control for individuals. I believe that the skyrocketing costs in the medical industry have to be addressed by our government. This system does not seem to have the right responses to the profit motive. We have privatized hospitals that used to be non-profit. We have drug companies placing their energy in finding treatments rather than cures.

So I cannot take care of my medical needs right now and I am frightened. I think it is time for the federal government to take aggressive action to address these rising costs.

Eeyore,

I talked to my friend last night and she told me that Albertsons and Kroger had taken an ad in the Orange County Register on Friday which noted that in the contract negotiations, the stores had agreed to a raise and two bonuses for its employees. She read the ad to me and it did seem quite fair. I tried to find the ad on-line and was unsuccessful.

Belladonna, I can understand why you might think that $80 a month is a good price for health insurance for an employee. I wouldn't mind paying that either, if that were my up-front understanding that that was what it was going to cost me. But if I started a job, and they said the employer covered it all, and then a year later was told I have to pay $80 a month, whether or not I thought that was a fair price would depend a whole lot on what they pay me.

I'm going to try to answer your questions one at a time.

1. Do you think it’s too much to ask employees to pay for their health care?
I've spent the bulk of my life working for hotels in one capacity or another. Most of them don't even offer health insurance for their employees. Of those that do, most will pay for 100% of the executives (GM, Sales Director, etc.), but do not pay anything for hourly employees (desk clerks, housekeepers, cooks).
So, employers are asking their employees to pay for it. But go back and look at the numbers you quoted in your own first post. Family insurance costs nearly $10,000 per year. How can you expect your average housekeeper making $12,500 per year ($6.00 per hour) to pay for this? What do they live on? It's not always a matter of personal responsibility, it's a matter of paying the insurance, or making the rent and buying groceries. And why is it that the company is willing to pay for mine, even though I could afford it, and not my desk clerks, who can't?

2. Have we become a society that expects others to provide for our basic needs?
Sad as it may be, in this case yes, and the insurance companies have no one but themselves to blame. 40 - 50 years ago, insurance was sold mainly to individuals, not as "group policies", except in rare instances. As rates went up steadily, and individuals had trouble paying the premiums, ins companies sold businesses on the idea of offering it as a means of retaining employees, adding to payroll without having to increase wages, etc. Now, however, even the companies are having trouble paying for these premiums.

3. Do you believe our employers should provide free health care?
No, they should not have to provide "free" health care. As long as our current system is in place, however, they should either cover enough of the premium to allow their employees to afford it, or pay the employee enough to afford it. After all, it's not much of a "employee benefit" if your employees can't "benefit" from it, because they can't afford it. Either that, or inform your employees that as of, say, six months from now, you will not be offering insurance to anyone, and they need to make arrangements for themselves.