Insurance and Health Care

Having good health is so very important. We have seen the other side of this issue as most of you know. That is one reason that we work so hard to insure that all of our employees have good health insurance. We try and offer the best available at an affordable rate. As employers, we see this as one of our responsibilities. Others seem to want to ignore it which is just wrong.

Individual health insurance — often touted as an alternative to employer-based group coverage — may be an option for the healthiest and wealthiest. But a study due out today suggests that the poor and sick need not apply.

The overwhelming majority — 89% — of working-age adults who shopped for health coverage in the individual market over the last three years were rejected for health reasons or found it too expensive, according to the study by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation that sponsors independent research on health and social issues.

Coverage was not affordable for 58% of the applicants, and 21% who had a medical condition were turned down, charged a higher premium or sold a policy that excluded the existing problem from coverage, the report said.

Individual insurance also is less affordable than employer-sponsored coverage, the study found. Two out of five people with individual coverage spent 5% or more of their income on premiums, compared with one out of seven people with employer coverage.

The study is the latest assessment of individual insurance, which is seen as an increasingly important form of coverage as employers drop health benefits for workers and their families because of the cost.

Most of the increase in the number of uninsured Americans — who now total, by some estimates, 46.6 million — was because of a decline in workplace coverage, said study author Sara Collins, an executive at the New York-based foundation.

This is just horrible. Here we live in the best country in the world with the highest quality health care and there are millions who can't access it. We are doing our part to make sure our employees are covered. If you are an employer, are you doing the same? This is part of living abundantly. Sure, we could make more money if we didn't offer health care, but what kind of scarcity mentality is that?!? Our employees are too important to us, they are like family.

This is an issue that we continue to watch. A solution for universal health coverage needs to be found, but it needs to be one that falls under the umbrella of abundance and not scarcity. We are confident that a solution is just around the corner, just waiting to be discovered. We are sure it will happen soon!