By Mark David Blum, Esq.
It almost seems necessary to say ‘thanks’ to the United States House of Representatives for finally enacting legislation that makes it illegal for an employer or insurance company to take action against policy holders or employees because of an inherited illness or genetic predisposition. Titled the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act, GINA is nothing but a Band-Aid cure for what really ails us.
The time has come to correct a sixty year old bad habit that started as a fad and marketing trend and has since blossomed into what most folks consider a near constitutional right. I speak of the new age belief that an employer should provide health care benefits to its employees … or that any employee actually has a right to insist, request, or even consider a health care plan as part of a compensation package.
Trust me too that I say this from a perspective of someone who really misses not having a quality health care plan in place.
Prior to the Second World War, there was no concept of an employer driven health care system. Because millions of healthy workers were in uniform, current demands of industry were high, and the labor force controlled the market, employers began using Health Insurance as an added incentive to lure skilled workers to their industry.
That behavior has never changed. When the next generations came into the work force, they too wanted the same benefits as their forefathers and what we have ended up with today is a benefit that is on par with actual salary as the primary job consideration.
Coast to coast, we see governments attempting through claimed legal or constitutional authority commanding private employers to provide a specific benefit to its workforce. Doing so is unconscionable for three reasons.
Employer driven health insurance is repugnant because (1) only the insurance companies profit, (2) it is an unreasonable burden on the entire market; both employer and employee, and (3) it gives insurance companies and your employer too much information about your private non-work related life.
America has to wake up to the con game called “health insurance”. There is absolutely no reason for a financial institution to involve itself in the relationship between doctor and client. Hospitals and medical providers deserve to be paid and yes their fees are extremely high.
But I am not paying money into a company so that one day when I need one, I am going to buy a new car. I may choose to save money to one day buy a new car. When the day comes that I actually do engage in such an expensive financial transaction, I will go try and borrow the money at that time.
Removing insurance from the equation will remove a very costly middle man; whose markup triples threefold the cost of services rendered. They fix the market prices. Insurance fixes the services that cannot and those which must be rendered. Cutting out the middle man will force the market prices to adjust, alternatives to financing will be reached such as doctors and hospitals carrying the paper (like the rest of the world), and a more sane and rational balance will be found. Don’t ban insurance. Just stop seeing it as the ultimate solution to our nation’s health care crisis.
Similarly, our nation’s employers are not medical providers (unless that is their service). Companies sell widgets and the skills to build, install, and operate those widgets. The last thing employers need is to involve themselves in the business of insurance or in our private medical situations; either in carrying it and billing for it, or in paying monstrous premiums to commercial carriers. It simply is not their business and frankly, employers have proven incompetent in providing sufficient quality benefits for the prices charged.
Consequently, though not allowed to discriminate in hiring, the discovery of a predisposition to cancer puts the employer in a position of mandatory higher medical premiums and outlays. Smart employers will be able to avoid GINA by simply finding other reasons to engage in adverse job actions. Doing so is the only salvation from the heightened risk.
With employees, the situation is no better. Mandatory insurance upon the employer gives the employer unbelievable access to the most private aspects of a person’s life. Employers will know your blood pressure, your drug preferences, and of your venereal diseases. You will have to share personal medical information just to get the job; not because it is a condition of employment but because it is necessary to assess your impact upon the risk pool. GINA has no impact on these calculations.
The bottom line is that business needs to focus on widgets. WE need to find another solution to our nation’s health crisis. Absolutely and no matter what, “insurance” must be factored out of the equation.
I encourage too our nation’s unions to remove insurance as an element of their contract demands. Doing so would free up so much capital, such that salaries, benefits, research and development would be enhanced. Such a mass shift in the burden of solving the health care crisis from the employer back to US, doing so will create pressure to change the old ways and find new ones.
The proof is in the pudding. Your premiums go up, your benefits go down, and guess who is the only party making any money? Look back five years, ten years, twenty five years. In which direction doth move the trend? Do you honestly expect this pattern to change?
‘Change’ comes from within. GINA cannot solve the problem and is little more than Congress putting a pretty face on a very ugly situation.
