Pork Stew: Employers Stiffing Workers with Increased Healthcare Costs

With the majority of President Obama’s healthcare reform not set to take effect until 2014, insurance companies are raising prices for coverage like never before, and workers are getting stuck footing the bill. A new study shows the average family paying $4,000 dollars per year for coverage, up a whopping 14% since 2009. Employer contributions remained the same. Meanwhile, co-pays increased 10% and deductibles skyrocketed. On my personal plan, my already high deductible of $1800 soared to $2400 from 2009.

I can appreciate that some businesses may honestly be unable to shoulder the burden of such a drastic increase in premiums, but the American worker cannot be expected to bear it either. In other cases, when CEOs are making hundreds of times what the lowest paid employee is making, I’d say they can afford to cut their salary and help their workers out. However, I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

Why is the insurance industry being allowed to bankrupt businesses and employees alike? Why did healthcare reform fail to stop this plunder of the American worker now? In a time when families are struggling to keep every penny together, our government has again failed to protect our citizens from the ruthless greed of the healthcare industry. Maybe if Democrats had spines, health reform would actually have had some teeth, and been able to chop off the pick-pocketing hand of these malicious corporations, these damnable entities that often hold our life and well-being in their hands.

(More on the study from the LA Times)