Earlier this week, the Governor proposed requiring employers, health insurance companies, and hospitals to contribute more to the Commonwealth Care fund. Click here to read a Boston Globe article about how business is resisting paying their fair share. Click here to read the Boston Globe's Op-Ed in support of the proposal. Read below for President Haynes' letter to the editor in response.

July 16, 2008

Dear Editor,

 

Governor Patrick's new proposal that would require employers to contribute a fair share of the funding for Commonwealth Care is the right move. When health care reform was first up for debate, we advocated strongly for a fair distribution of responsibility. We applaud Speaker DiMasi, who led a tremendous effort to increase the required contributions from employers. The Speaker battled Governor Romney head-on for a more fair and more sustainable health reform bill, but the governor refused to budge. We adopted Senator Kennedy's incremental approach to winning progress for working families. Under a Republican administration, the Senator has fought for small victories for working families and then expanded on them later; it is the only way to win under a hostile administration; and it works. Health care reform advocates accepted the compromise under Governor Romney, and everyone knew we would have a severe shortfall to address, and now its past time we fixed it. Business knew, hospitals knew, and insurance companies certainly knew that they would need to get serious about funding health care reform.

 

Government and individuals have been forced to bear the brunt of the costs while businesses have been able to skate by with "responsiblity-lite". Under this new proposal, hospitals, insurance companies, and businesses are asked to fix the funding troubles by contributing a fair share.  An employer would only have to pay a mere $295 per uninsured worker unless 25% of its employees are covered under an employer-provided health care plan and at least 33% of employees' health premiums are covered. When one considers the sky-rocketing hospital profits, the deep reserves of insurers, and business profits, the contribution asked per uninsured employee is a drop in the bucket. For health care reform to work, employers need to step up to the plate and participate fairly. It is an insult to working families everywhere that the industry leaders, hospitals, and insurance companies with coffers deeper than the ocean are dragging their heels about paying their fair share.

 

The plan on the table right now would raise at least $66 million dollars; and would do no harm to business. Yet the various parties involved are all crying "foul!" The Massachusetts Association of Health Plans needs to stop acting as if the sky is falling, exaggerating the impact that this will have on their reserves. Furthermore, for the hospitals to try to use the proposed safe staffing ratio issue as condition of whether or not they will contribute to the health care plan is completely outrageous. It is time for all parties to own up to the commitment they made two years ago to fund a fully viable state health care plan; and they should do so without any stipulations or strings attached.

 

Governor Patrick has taken the right step forward by calling on employers to increase their contributions. It is not the last step, no doubt, but it will take us closer to a more just system for funding health care.

 

Sincerely,

Robert J. Haynes, President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO