I found this, AFL-CIO to Take Maryland's 'Wal-Mart Health Plan' Across Nation and I just had to comment.
Let's get this straight. For most of written history, doctors have been paid with cash up front. In return, doctors did their best, and included perks like house calls. I remember our family doctor, Dr. Rose, in Maple Heights making a house call on me when I was about 5.
Now that we have super expensive procedures, we now "need" managed care. This is where you pay insurance every month, and the well support the sick. Where doctors are forced to squeeze in as many patients as possible in order to make a profit.
We need to change our health care system, and change it radically to a two-tier system. One where you use a Health Savings Account (HSA) to pay for major medical expenses and catastrophic illnesses. The HSA doesn't kick in until you've spent about $3-4000 a year, then pays the rest. In return, your health care plan costs a lot less per month.
For normal doctor visits, well baby care and minor emergencies, you pay out of your own pocket. When you spend your own money, you are a lot more careful about how you spend it. If you had to pay for at least some of your medications, you will make sure that you have to need them, not just that you want them.
This is called PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. It is a tenet of the Conservative way of life. When you start having the government manage your health care, directly or indirectly, that's called SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. We start getting into SOCIALISM. Socialism has failed (or is failing) every where it's been tried so far. No reason to believe the next try will succeed. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the very definition of madness.
I would much rather have my employer pay me what they normally pay as their share of health care and let me find my own plan. Like I said, if I have to pay for it, I will shop and make sure I am getting the best service for the best price. You can either take a full pay plan, or an HSA and save the difference, where if you spend the year well, what you saved goes into savings and provides a real safety net.
For example, if you saved $4,000 that first year (and you can at $330 a month, if your employer pays you what he was paying for your health care) then you can put that into a savings account and not need it until you get sick. You then can enjoy that extra $330 a month (or save it towards retirement) until you get sick and have to replenish the emergency fund. It's simple, right? Can you imagine how much you could save if you had to?
Let's get back to Wal-Mart. If people weren't satisfied with the benefits there, why would they apply and work there? I mean, it's a full employment economy, jobs are going unfilled by the page in the newspaper. If you work hard and apply yourself in school, then there is no place your desire and determination can't get you. That's another tenet of the Conservative way of life. You create your own opportunity.
Wal-Mart, and any other employer for that matter, has no business subsidizing health care. By subsidizing it, they are driving the prices up and making it unaffordable for people without a health plan. Which drives up prices even more, and so on in a vicious circle.
Like I said, let every employee get an HSA and let them make their own choices about health care.
I promise you, if that happens, we will stop seeing people at the emergency room with colds or the flu and a slight fever who don't want to pay for the drugs at the local drug store. They will wait until the fever hits a dangerous level and then come in, making a true emergency room case. In the mean time, they will administer aspirin and Nyquil at home and 98% of the time, get over it on their own. This will stop the overcrowding of emergency rooms, encourage more non-emergency visits to the doctor, and help fund the emergency rooms where if you want to come in, you have to pay.
It will also help prevent the Anchor Baby problem, if illegal immigrant mothers-to-be can't get their babies delivered here. But that's another post for another time.
If you want to help the health care crisis in America today, get a HSA and take responsibility for your own health problems. Don't farm it off to everybody else. I don't want to pay for your Viagra.
Now that I've got that laid out, let's head to the article:
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney said Wednesday the legislation passed last week in Maryland to require employers to spend a percentage of their payrolls on employee health care was the "first crisp punch" in the fight for workers' rights.
"Workers' rights" is a euphemism for socialization. Never forget that.
America has decided to compete in the global marketplace by degrading work and workers through privatization and de-unionization, rather than competing through innovation and ingenuity, said Sweeney, head of the nation's largest association of labor unions.
Let's get this straight. Unionization raises prices. Why? Because it provides the same amount of pay to everybody, and everybody has to pay dues. Not to mention everybody gets paid the same, no matter how hard or not-so-hard they work. If you get paid the same, there is no significant incentive to work harder to get that raise. It comes along as long as you do the minimum work to keep you from getting fired. It penalizes the performers and awards the slackers.
"It's bad for consumers, bad for growth, bad for the small businesses that will be targeted," Colburn said. "You have to rename Maryland 'The People's Republic of Maryland,' now that we're the leader of the socialized medicine movement."
When the government tells a business how to conduct its own internal affairs, that's known as Socialism. There is a difference between mandating safe work conditions and telling them how much they need to spend on health care.
This will be a disaster for Maryland residents. Either they will pay more at Wal-Mart, or 7,000+ will lose their jobs because of this law. I hope it is successfully challenged in court.