Attention, all business owners who offer medical health coverage for employees and those unable to afford health care for their employees. I invite you to consider health care through a single-payer system like Medicare, called Medicare for All.
Now is the time for us to let go of our current exorbitantly expensive and grossly inefficient health care system and try a new approach.
Under a single-payer system, you will pay less for improved coverage for your employees and can use that savings to offer increases in their salary.
Insurance costs will be replaced by a payroll deduction, similar to Social Security and Medicare. The bump in payroll taxes will still be significantly lower than what you are paying now to insure your employees.
The average cost for most employers to pay health care benefits is over 20 percent of payroll.
Here’s the math: The average wage for an American worker is $49,000. The average cost for employer-based commercial insurance is $19,000 per year for family coverage and $6,500 per year for single coverage. That means the average cost of a health benefit exceeds 15 percent of employee compensation.
Insurance premiums do not include what your employees additionally pay out of pocket for care: rising deductibles and co-pays. The premiums also do not include the human resources expense to administer health plans.
Under single-payer, employers would pay 7.75 percent of payroll as a payroll deduction, and employees would pay 3.25 percent. Deductibles would be eliminated.
Everyone deserves health care. Learn more at pnhp.org or healthoverprofit.org.
Jan Phillips
Durango
Poll: Would you support a single-payer health care system like Medicare, called Medicare for All, that would lower costs for business owners to cover their employees?
Yes - 938 - 65.23%
No - 500 - 34.77%
