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Not as bad as expected

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Illinois

I was wondering recently what happened to this state law. Apparently, we now have a report.

According to a report compiled by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services and mandated by the legislature, Illinois hospitals provided charity care, or unpaid care, to at least 1,132 Wal-Mart employees from August 2005 to March 2006 at a cost of $2.49 million. […]

Other uninsured hospital patients identified in the report worked for: Caterpillar, Target, Laidlaw Transit, Chicago Transit Authority, AT&T, Remax, Manpower, Chicago Public Schools, Addus Healthcare, Harrah’s Casino, McDonald’s, Burger King and the state of Illinois, to name a few. Even Jewel Foods made the list, despite its affiliation with United Food and Commercial Workers.

More than 1,200 McDonald’s workers required $2.41 million in free care. Labor unions employing 571 workers required $1.30 million in care at Illinois hospitals.

Admittedly, the report did not track whether employees worked full or part-time. Some of the corporations named in the report provide health care coverage for full-time workers. Many of the uninsured may work only a few days a week.

The legislature created the Public Health Program Beneficiary Employer Disclosure Law at the behest of Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who expanded health care programs for the working poor and their uninsured children.

By disclosing the identities of companies with lackluster employee benefits, Blagojevich and the Democratically controlled legislature hoped to nudge corporations toward more health care coverage.

Maybe it got so little notice because the results weren’t exactly blockbusters. If labor union employees got just a million dollars less in free healthcare than Wal-Mart workers I can see why the report wasn’t released with a wild flourish.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 9:48 am

Comments

Pretty much what I predicted would happen.

What incentive would any business have to offer health coverage if the taxpayers would foot the bill?

Econ 101.

Comment by Cal Skinner Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 10:59 am
Who should provide health care?
Your doctor should.
Who should PAY for your health care?
You have a variety of options because you are responsible for what you choose to do.

Thanks to insurance we have a wonderful new array of medicines and benefits that probably wouldn’t be available if left to a simple supply-demand market. Insurance makes new medicines possible. But insurance comes with a drawback, as any Econ 101 student learns - it prevents true costs, and escalates costs.

By insulating us from our true costs, prices go up. By stepping in to pay for those who cannot afford health care, government also pushes prices up. Now that we have millions of elderly and new generations of pro-active patients coming before health problems arise, the market is saturated driving costs further.

By demanding that government supply health care, we fall into the same hole Western Europe has discovered. Government provided health care stinks. Patients do not get immediate care. Your health care problems become everyone’s social problem and you have choices made for you regardless of whether it is good for you.

Just as Hurricane Katrina victims learned, expecting government to be there in an emergency is foolhardy. It has rarely worked. Take a look again at Western Europe. These are not stupid people. They are not poor economies. Yet even after 60 years or longer of universal health care, their systems have crashed or are crashing. These are little countries. They can’t make it work. What makes us think we’re any smarter than they? Why would be follow suit into the same hole? Because it is “fair”? Nonsense.

We have been hearing lies. You will not get your current health care paid for by someone else. It won’t happen. If you want government to pay for your health care, be prepared for crappy health care, just like the lousy health care in every country that tried it. You will not get the cutting edge medicine we currently enjoy. You will not get the latest pharmaceuticals. You will get shoved off an assembly line with a bottle of homeopathic snake oil like Germans and French citizens currently experience.

There is no free lunch. It is foolish that citizens that demand the finest automobiles, homes, electronics and razor blades, are willing to hand over their most precious resource - their heath - to a government ran monopoly of bureaucrats. It is just dang stupid!

Comment by VanillaMan Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 11:24 am
[Government provided health care stinks]

And as it currently stands, the system is already a mess, just to be perfectly honest.

Insurance companies, aside from the prompt pay laws that sort of force many to pay a certain percentage of claims right off the bat, tend to sit on some of them, because they make money off the float period during which they aren’t paying out on those claims. The hospitals, and this is something I’ve just recently learned, make profit through something called arbitrage, and on top of it, many are sitting on heaps of money, some of which ought to be earmarked for the neediest (that’s why AG Madigan is on this charity care issue with the hospitals).

It is a mess all around as it is, and the government running it all sounds just as scary. Don’t know what the best solutions are, but I suspect it’ll require a multi-pronged approach and not just one or two attempts at reform in particular areas. But nice to know that Rod and AG Madigan aren’t on the same page! That’ll make everyone feel real comfortable and secure about reform in Illinois. Nothing like having your Governor and AG completely at odds, right?

Comment by Angie Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 1:25 pm
The moral of the story… You don’t need health insurance because the state will foot the bill.

Comment by Lovie's Leather Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 2:21 pm
Somethings odd here, and should be obvious on reflection. Even if we’re very charitable and say the rate of uninsured employees are about the same in Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and among “union employees” (staff?), there would have to be a much, much bigger differential in the absolute numbers given here. That’s because, though the rate would be the same, we all know many, many more people work for Wal-Mart or McDonalds than all of the unions combined.

There are some obvious answers to this, which all bring into question the report’s results. If everything is correct as stated, than this should be big news. It would mean a huge percentage of unions’ staff are uninsured. I’ve met plenty of union staff that have felt their compensation was lacking, but never one that lacked health insurance.

Comment by Carlos Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 2:49 pm
A friend’s mother is a Jewel employee. She told me that seemingly all of the other employees at her location go to Stroger Hospital (in particular to have kids) rather than pay whatever the co-pay is on the company-paid insurance.

Let me add to that: If the rest of your family goes to a County hospital for all health needs, that is your only reference even if you do have insurance. How would a young adult even know how to find a private doctor.

The real issue is that the County hospitals have not been billing insurance companies.

Comment by RBD Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 3:27 pm
[The moral of the storyâ€¦ You donâ€™t need health insurance because the state will foot the bill.]

Half the time, you pay premiums but don’t have health insurance.

I’ve worked claims before, and getting them to pay stuff is like a dentist trying to extract a giant tooth from a rhino.

Then, if you choose to be a self-pay, the hospitals inflate the charges sometimes 4 times above actual cost.

Best bet: Don’t get sick.

Comment by Angie Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 3:34 pm
The union line of uninsured might be that many trades people do not have 1 steady employer and in the winter time when there is no work they list the union employer because the technically “work out of the hall”

Comment by Grocery Guy Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 3:44 pm
Or, Grocery Guy, unions are more concerned with being unions than they are concerned with helping working people….

Comment by Lovie's Leather Thursday, Nov 16, 06 @ 4:03 pm