An overture to President Obama

Public health insurance plan will begin to erode employer-sponsored group health plans

Editorial by Sean Fitzgerald

 A good friend of mine and a loyal reader of B2B who serves as a union steward for one of the area teachers’ associations was lucky enough to be selected for two tickets to attend President Obama’s visit to Green Bay on June 11. I had the good fortune of being asked to use the second ticket my friend obtained – unfortunately, work and a few volunteer commitments prevented me from joining him.

It was too bad. The message the president shared regarding a potential new era of health care coverage resonated with me as a small business owner who isn’t able to provide health insurance coverage for my employees. In watching the replay of Obama’s Wisconsin pit stop on C-SPAN the following Saturday morning, I felt – if only projecting the image of myself standing in the audience addressing Obama as a handful of others did that day – I might have added a fresh perspective to the discussion. A perspective that might have affected policy, changed the course of health in the United States for years to come, yada, yada. I hadn’t had any coffee yet that morning, and my mind began wandering.

So I decided I’d take a few moments here in my monthly publisher’s column to share what I hope I would’ve said if I attended the president’s visit and had been selected from the audience to speak to him. Here it goes:

Good morning Mr. President and thank you for accepting my comments.

You’re to be commended for your continued attention to health care concerns in this country.

The plan you’ve described today is indeed bold and would mark a historic change in the United States – not only in health care policy – but also in the overall role government plays in the lives of its citizens. This proposal, though – with all due respect for the careful consideration it was given – would lead our health care system, our capitalist economy and our nation as a whole down a disastrous path, one that would likely lay waste to our status as a global leader and a global model.

Your proposal calls for a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, a recipe for eliminating private insurers altogether. Bear in mind, the paradigm of health insurance being provided exclusively through employers hasn’t always existed in this country, but would certainly be eliminated altogether under your proposal.

Decades ago, business owners used health insurance coverage as an employee perk – an added incentive to set themselves apart from other employers looking to recruit the same talent. Fast forward to the 21^st century, and health insurance coverage has become an expected part of the compensation package – both from the employee’s perspective, as well as that of most business owners.

In the economic environment of 2009, business owners can’t afford to maintain expenses that can be provided elsewhere. A business that has the money to provide tuition reimbursement for an employee who qualifies for tuition assistance through the GI Bill, as an example, is going to ask that employee to take advantage of their benefit as a veteran rather than put a co-worker’s job at risk.

When times get tough, budgets need to be trimmed, and a public insurance option will only serve as a temptation for employers to persuade their employees to move into such a public insurance pool. With no incentive to maintain a group health insurance plan for employees, employers can drop health benefits altogether. Such a trend would only progress to larger and larger employers, as well, until no private insurer can survive – leaving all Americans on public health insurance. That’s just the system of social medicine you and I both don’t want.

Mr. President, the problem isn’t so much with Americans inability to obtain health insurance through their employer as it is an unwillingness take responsibility for our own health insurance, our own health care costs, and even our own health. That’s the most common denominator: creating a system where each adult takes responsibility for their own health, or suffers financial or health consequences.

To be certain, there are millions suffering of illness and disability through no fault of their own who do need to be accommodated – this is why public assistance for health care was implemented in the first place. But I’ll submit that this group is the least likely to take their health for granted, and the most diligent to take measures to preserve the health they do have.

Mr. President, let’s shift the focus of the national health care debate away from a public health insurance option, and challenge each and every American to be a dutiful guardian of their own health and wellness.