Health Insurance Still Rising

It looks like workers will lose more ground this year. Hewitt Associates, a benefits consulting firm, has released a report showing that health care insurance in the Metroplex will rise about 7.6% to an average of $9,021.00 for a worker in the DFW area. Nationwide, the figure is also rising.

For the nation as a whole, the health insurance costs will rise about 7.7%. This means the average cost for a worker to get health insurance in this country is now $8,340.00. When our current White House incompetent took office in 2000, the average cost for a worker's health insurance was only $4,018.00. Since Georgie became president, costs for health insurance have MORE THAN DOUBLED!!

The insurance companies are bragging about the rise in prices being only 7.7%, saying that is a smaller rise than in recent years. That may be, but it still is larger than inflation or worker raises. Once again, workers are going to lose ground.

While the insurance companies enjoy their enormous profits, fewer and fewer Americans can afford health insurance each year, and the number of uninsured rises each year. We now have over 40 million Americans without health insurance, and millions more who are just a layoff away from losing theirs. We cannot continue doing this for much longer. Here in Texas, we already have about a quarter of our citizens who do not have health insurance.

Isn't it time to start discussing how we can cover all Americans with health insurance? I personally think we need a single-payer system run by the government, like they have in Canada. Americans like to think we have the best healthcare system in the world, but that is simply not true. We spend more money on healthcare than anyone else, but get less out of the money we spend. We have one of the highest infant death rates of any civilized country, and shoddy healthcare is the third leading cause of death in this country.

It is time to stop fooling ourselves. It is time to recognize the right of all citizens to basic healthcare, and institute a single-payer system in this country.