Responding to Student
Employees that are happy with their reimbursements shall continue to work and be more productive in the workplace. This is an adage that has been held to be proven and true. I agree with the author that employees seek employers based on the health insurance benefits that they offer and that people might even work for less pay when offered a good health care package.
The problem might be with the added costs that employers have to pay for employees’ health and the effects that they have on hiring and retaining employees with potentially higher health costs. Already many institutions that offer health care benefits prohibit the employment of smokers, who they deem to be an added cost and burden (Schmidt, 2013, p. 1369). This might leave an increasing number of people without proper healthcare as health issues continue to rise, and other health issues might be added to the list.
Whilst certainly not all, increasing the number of uninsured Americans are eager to qualify for some sort of health insurance (Krueger, 2013, p. 789). However, if employers discriminate whilst hiring, and income requirements for Medicare increased, more people will be left with no option but to apply for Medicaid or remain uninsured. There are already issues with physician’s preferring patients on Medicare over Medicaid as the reimbursement rates are far lower for the latter, further pushing low-income patients to remain uninsured (Hahn, 2013, p.459).
There are many issues that need to be resolved and while a proposed increase in income tax might lead to increased coverage, I too am hopeful that now that the path to universal healthcare has taken shape, a smoother ride is only a matter of time as we iron out the kinks that the plan might have (Hansen, 2014, p. 325).
References
Schmidt, H., Voigt, K., & Emanuel, E. (2013). The Ethics of Not Hiring Smokers. New England Journal of Medicine N Engl J Med, 1369-1371.
Krueger, A., & Kuziemko, I. (2013). The Demand for Health Insurance Among Uninsured Americans: Results of a Survey Experiment and Implications for Policy. Journal of Health Economics, 780–793-780–793.
Hahn, Y. (2013). The Effect of Medicaid Physician Fees on Take-Up of Public Health Insurance Among Children in Poverty. Journal of Health Economics, 452-468.
Hansen, G., Hsu, M., & Lee, J. (2014). Health Insurance Reform: The Impact of a Medicare Buy-In. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 45, 325.
