By Mark David Blum, Esq.

New York is now dabbling in legislation that will require employers of more than 100 people to spend at least $3.00 per hour per employee for health benefits. Called the "Fair Share for Health Care" Act, Legislators will be jumping on this election year bandwagon to make them seem either sympathetic to employers or to employees … depending on their targeted constituency.

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 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.

Wherefrom comes to any government, the legal or constitutional authority to actually command a private employer to provide a specific benefit to its workforce. Doing so is unconscionable for two reasons.

Before I address them, I would first insist that mandatory health benefits are not the same legal animal as a minimum wage. Minimum wage is also a mandatory directive to private employers for the payment of benefits. Minimum wage laws sends the profits directly into the hands of the consumer and the State via taxes. Also, these minimum wage laws apply to everyone across the board.

Aside from the libertarian and capitalist defenses of private rights to do business any way you want consistent with those who would buy your product, the two reasons government mandated health insurance through employers is repugnant are (1) only the insurance companies profit, and (2) it is an unreasonable burden on the entire market; both employer and employee.

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). We sell widgets and the skills to build, install, and operate those widgets. The last thing our employers need is to involve themselves in the business of insurance; either in carrying it and billing for it, or in paying monstrous premiums to commercial carriers. It simply is not their business and frankly, they suck at providing any quality benefits for the prices charged.

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.

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 your doctors get richer. 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.