Beep. Beep. Beep. The nurses’ chattering sounds fill the hallway outside the door, while patiently waiting for the doctor to make their early morning rounds. Lying in the cold hospital room after receiving the devastating news. Cancer. Hearing those horrible words, then worrying about how to afford the hospital stay to begin with. Now all the follow-up doctor appointments and treatments, without a clue how to make the financial obligations. This is something thousands of people without medical coverage face on a daily basis. Should I go to the doctor? Should I call the ambulance? How will I pay for any extra bills? Sadly many Americans must make a horrible costly choice, to put food on the table or pay for medicines and doctor bills. …show more content…
When you choose a specific plan, you can save on personal health-care costs, increase tax deductions, and boost job satisfaction within their company. The employer (small-business owner) will be required to pay some percentage of an employee’s individual premium, which is often 25 to 50 percent, depending, again on the state’s laws and the insurance company. Also if the employee wants to extend coverage to a spouse or dependant, the employer may choose to pay a percentage of that cost but is not required to do so. Most employees have long believed that the employer’s portion comes out of the employer’s profits. Most employers share that view, believing that their premium payments are a cost of doing business and as such, cut into the profitability of the company. Economists and the Congressional Budget Office, on the other hand, are convinced by theory and empirical evidence that this portion, too. is actually shifted back to employees in the form of lower take home pay (Iglehart). Economist Mark Pauly asserted that “higher medical costs do not harm employers or owners, but do reduce money wages for workers….Lower costs benefit workers, not employers; they add to take-home pay, not profits (Iglehart). Collectively, private employers and employees are the most important purchasers of health care through the insurance premiums they pay together for coverage. In a study of health insurance benefits in small businesses, which found strong evidence to support the assertions made by several small-business interest groups that insurance companies routinely use a variety of underwriting techniques to control the amount of financial risk to which they may be exposed in the small-business market (Zellers). Enrollment of high-risk firms is limited through a practice known as redlining, in which