From traditional society to modern society, America has managed to end up with a part employer-based and part government-based system. What does this mean? It simply means that American employers provide healthcare and pension plans to most workers, and the government provides Social Security, which is public pension, and Medicaid and Medicare, which is health care for the poor and elderly (Haltstead and Lind 66). This might seem like a good idea, but in fact it has lead to many problems that must be resolved quickly. America’s Broken Social Contract The current United States social contract has created many problems for the American citizens. It is possible to see many of the problems when examining the employer-based part and government-based part of the contract. The employer-based part of the social contract is in fact a “historical accident.” It is a historical accident because during World War II employers could not raise wages; so, the employers gave employees health insurance to receive tax breaks (Halstead and Lind 66). This created the basis for the current United States employer-based health care system. In turn this system has lead to many problems. These problems include: 1. constant change in insurance companies, 2. increases number of unemployed Americans, 3. increased use of temporary workers, 4. depletes the opportunity for genetic testing for employers and insurers. Due to job mobility and a decrease of life time employment with a single company, Americans are under a constant change in insurance companies (Halstead and Lind 67-72). This leads to a poor relationship with the workers and physicians, because workers are being bounced to different physicians every time they accept a new job. Next, there is an increasing number of uninsured Americans. According to the Census Bureau, there are 46.6 million uninsured Americans (www.cbpp.org 2006). This is an outrageous number that continues to increase. There is also an increasing trend of hiring temporary workers instead of full- time workers. Temporary workers are hired because the employers do not have to provide health insurance or pension plans for these types of employees (Halstead and Lind 70). The last problem discussed is the depletion of the opportunity for genetic testing for employers and insurers. The study of genetics... ... middle of paper ... ... is the lowest in the sample at 14.8%. This shows that America is not a generous welfare state, and the implementation of Halstead and Lind’s citizen-based social contract, with two-tier models for healthcare and pension, would be a good plan and improvement. Works Cited CIA World Factbook. “United States, Switzerland, Poland, Portugal, Japan, Sweden United Kingdom: Fact Pages.” (14 June 2006). 23 April 2007. www.cia.gov. From, Al. "44,000,000 & 98,000-- A Tale of Two Numbers." Blueprint Magazine (1 April 2000). www.ndol.org. Halstead, Ted and Michael Lind. The Radical Center: The Future of American Politics. New York: Random House Inc., 2001. OECD. “Quality of Life.” OECD Factbook 2007: Economic, Environmental, and Social Statistics. 18 April 2007. Steinberg, Karen K. “Risks Associated with Genetic Testing: Health Insurance Discrimination or Simply Business as Usual?” Center for Disease Control And Prevention. (11 January 2007). 23 April 2007. www.cdc.gov. Census Bureau, “The Number Is Uninsured Americans Is At An All-Time High.” Census Bureau. (29 August 2007). 23 April 2007.
Employers who do not offer an employee healthcare can leave them open to a different type of financial responsibility. Employees who qualify for a premium tax credit, in turn qualify their employers for a provision called the Employer Shared Responsibility.
CQ Researcher published the article. They are an authority with where they stand in the world; meaning they are very informational and helpful. It is scholarly reviewed. By comparing it to my other sources, this source has more information and helps a lot more than the rest of my sources. The article is objective and informational. The goal of this article is to inform people on the statistics and how we can help lower the numbers.
Wilper, A. P., Woolhandler, S., Lasser, K. E., McCormick, D., Bor, D. H. & Himmelstein, D. U. 2009. Health insurance and mortality in US adults. American journal of public health. Vol. 99, Issue-12, Pgs 2289-2295.
...tistics. Ed. Michael Levi. United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1 Feb. 2010. Web. 20 June 2010. .
Health care is an uprising issue today in the United States. I believe in order for health care or the medical field to succeed in the future that social contract should be enforced. By enforcing social contract, it will allow health care to be more efficient by allowing individuals to assume responsibility for their own healthy by having the ability to ensure health. According to The Enduring Democracy book, " from the philosophy of Jean- Jacques Rousseau, an agreement people make with one another to form a government and abide by its rules and laws, an in return the government promises to protect the people’s rights and welfare and promote their best interest"(Dautrich, 7). In other words, if people came to an agreement about health care being available for all American citizens, the government will uphold this idea and will make sure all American citizens have the right to health care.
With that in mind, the insurance crisis affects the entire community and according to Thomas May, “Already skyrocketing costs are forcing employers to adjust health insurance benefits, with many resorting to plans that offer fewer benefits, less choices, and higher deductibles and copays” (May, 2007). For instance, in the last 10 years insurance premiums have increased 80 percent, employees have had an astonishing 89 percent increase in their contribution to health insurance, all in the guise of trying to reduce misuse of services and control costs (Bisera, C). As a result, this trend is going to leave many at an increased risk of losing their insurance coverage because small businesses will not be able to afford the increased premiums, in addition to that, the “working poor” are the fastest growing uninsured population (May,
...l increase as more professionals opt to work in the private health sector in order to earn more money.
Most people rely on their employers to provide them with health insurance, but with many health care is not available through the employers. Many small businesses can simply not afford the high cost of health care, or it may be available, but the employee needs to pay the entire premiums. A lot of employers are utilizing part time employees, the part time employees are usually not qualified for benefits, like health insurance. This is very unfortunate for these part timer’s not only because they will not get benefits such as health insurance, but also they probably have a slim chance of going full time because of the health insurance dilemma. Business owner’s need to assess what is good for them financially, and having plenty of part time employees who do not require insurance is probably the most cost effective method to keep the Business up and running.
only dedicated workers to apply for this program. That is exactly why this program should be
The steady rise of healthcare costs and the ever increasing cost of health insurance premiums are making it harder and harder for employers to pay healthcare premiums for their employees. In the past, it was almost a given that employers picked up the tab for health insurance coverage. The health coverage was usually exceptional with little or no money paid out of pocket by the individual for the insurance premiums. Those appear to be the “good old days”, with fewer and fewer employers shelling out money for health insurance premiums and demanding a larger percentage to be paid by the employee. Other employers are simply unable to financially provide healthcare coverage for their employees and have stopped all together.
high. Statistics prove that in recent years, in the United States, nearly 35,000 people have been
increased from 35.3 million in 2005 to 50.5 million in 2010. As the U.S. population
Morris, J. K., Cook, D. and Shaper, A. (1994) ‘Loss of Employment and Mortality’, British Medical Journal, 308, 1135-9.
The prospect of the welfare state in America appears to be bleak and almost useless for many citizens who live below the poverty line. Katz’s description of the welfare state as a system that is “partly public, partly private, partly mixed; incomplete and still not universal; defeating its own objectives” whereas has demonstrates how it has become this way by outlining the history of the welfare state which is shown that it has been produced in layers. The recent outcomes that Katz writes about is the Clinton reform in 1996 where benefits are limited to a period of two years and no one is allowed to collect for more than five years in their lifetime unless they are exempted. A person may only receive an exemption on the grounds of hardship in which states are limited to granting a maximum of 20% of the recipient population. The logic behind this drastic measure was to ensure that recipients would not become dependent upon relief and would encourage them to seek out any form of employment as quickly as possible. State officials have laid claim to this innovation as a strategy that would “save millions of children from poverty.” However, state officials predict otherwise such as an increase in homelessness, a flooding of low-waged workers in the labour market, and decreased purchasing power which means less income from tax collections. The outcomes of this reform appear to be bleak for many Americans who reside below the poverty line. How does a wealthy country like America have such weak welfare system? Drawing upon Katz, I argue that the development of the semi-welfare state is a result of the state taking measures to ensure that the people do not perceive relief as a right and to avoid exploiting the shortfalls of capitalism ...
loan debt, and the rising cost of heaith care insurance. The end result is that irardly any of the