All who can pay for care should do so
My husband and I have owned and operated a small business for 22 years and provided group health insurance for over 10 years. Currently, we pay 50 percent of the premium for individual coverage and 25 percent of dependent coverage, with the employee picking up the rest.
We have been told often by our insurance broker that we have to treat all employees equally, and that we should only pay 50 percent of what the premium would be for individual coverage for all employees. We tried to do that the year before last, at the beginning of our new contract year. As you can imagine, there was a great outcry from the employees who have dependent coverage. They all said they can't afford to pay 100 percent of the dependent coverage.
We took a survey of all the employees who only have individual coverage (in writing) to see how they felt about the employees with dependent coverage getting a larger benefit than they were getting. Not one employee objected to this, and many said that they felt this was right because each of their situations could change to where they might need dependent coverage in the future. The 25 percent of dependent coverage was a compromise.
We have 25 employees, including ourselves, of whom three are part-time and are not provided any health insurance. Out of the remaining 22, 11 have individual coverage, seven have family coverage, two have employee and spouse coverage, one has parent and child coverage, and one employee declined to have any coverage.
This benefit cost our company $29,804.50 in 1993. Of the seven employees with family coverage, four have full-time employed spouses whose companies do not provide health insurance, or their spouses prefer our coverage because we have Blue Cross and Blue Shield Preferred Provider coverage. Of the remaining three, two have unemployed spouses and one is divorced. The divorced employee's husband is supposed to provide coverage for their two children but doesn't.
As you can see from the above, it would be more economical for our company to only hire single, childless employees. Of course, this would be discriminatory and there is no guarantee that employees would remain unmarried and/or childless.
It is a burden to our company that the companies of our employee's working spouses do not provide health insurance. If the companies do provide it, their employees should be legally required to enroll in their plans.
Our one employee who declined coverage and is single and childless states that the doctors he sees give him reduced rates and often work out easy payment plans for him. He feels this is financially better for him than paying $1,009.32 a year in insurance premiums for individual coverage. He is unconcerned that the rest of us with insurance coverage are picking up the difference in reduced fees that his doctors are charging him, in the form of higher premiums.
My feelings on National Health legislation are that all employers should be required to provide health insurance. There should be only three classes: individual, non-working spouse and children. Employers should pay 50 percent of individual coverage only. Employees should pay 50 percent of their individual coverage and 100 percent of non-working spouse and children coverage. This is truly fair to everyone.
All part-time employees should also be covered. Since many part-time workers work for two or more employers, employers should pay 50 percent of their individual coverage pro-rated on the number of hours they worked in any 40-hour work week. Of course this would require that the insurance companies collect their insurance premiums after the month of coverage instead of before the month of coverage, as they do now.
The unemployed should be 100 percent covered by public funds, as many of them are now. It needs to be calculated what this 100 percent coverage would cost our nation, and a health tax needs to be implemented. This tax should not be assessed on employers, but should be part of the individual federal tax return. That way everyone would contribute.
I also think that we need a motto for this country that says, "Health security -- your fair share." I hope people take this two ways. One, that everyone is entitled to health security, and two, that everyone who can, should share in the cost of it.
Diane Turner
LTC Mt. Airy
Dirty politics
This has been one of the worst, most negative political campaign seasons I can recall in more than three decades' involvement in the process that elects our country's leaders.
Fortunately, all the candidates who practiced that low art in the recent primaries were defeated. But now, it seems, we have sunk to a new low.
The hiring of a private detective by anyone to spy on the candidate and his or her family against whom one is running is, to me, both morally reprehensible and politically unethical.
I cannot speak for how others might feel, but I think anyone associated with such a sordid affair should be ashamed of themselves. Such a tactic has no place in our political life, and any candidate who authorizes such tactics should be driven from public life by the voters at the polls.
In the more than 20 campaigns in which I have been fortunate enough to participate since 1960 -- either as a defeated candidate or victorious worker for other people in races from the Maryland House of Delegates to the presidency of the United States -- I have never participated in, authorized, or condoned such practices. I condemn those who have and do.
Blaine Taylor
Towson
Why not the best?
As a parent of two children who attend Baltimore County Public Schools, I have become disheartened at times by the way my children are being educated. I know that times have changed and I have to learn to accept change with grace. But I can only do this when the change is for the good.
Some of the ways the children are being taught have taken a turn for the worse. Where have the days gone when a child would receive required reading from his or her textbooks each night? When their backpacks were weighed down with thick textbooks? Where have the long nights of studying for the tests gone?
When did dittos become the rule instead of the exception? We may have needed to change the system, but why did it have to be done in such a negative manner? The United States was the envy of the world during the 1960s and 1970s when it came to public education. What happened?
When I asked for a textbook or a reference book for my child to use, the response I usually get is, "The material is taken from several sources, so there's really not a book available for use."
This is ridiculous -- to change the curriculum and not have a solid reference for the child to use.
When I express my concerns to friends -- some are co-workers, teachers and family -- the response sometimes is, "it's a shame you can't afford private school" or "you get what you pay for."
Aren't we all as taxpayers paying for the education of the children? Shouldn't this system work? And shouldn't it be the best available?
Ann Queen
Baltimore
MADD success
On behalf of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, I would like to publicly thank Baltimore County Executive Roger Hayden and Michael Gimbel, director of the Office of Substance Abuse, for all their hard work, dedication and perseverance that made possible the opening of the new Baltimore County DWI Detention Center Sept. 20.
These two men, along with many other people, have worked hard during the past years to make this center a reality.
This center will provide both the punishment and treatment that we in MADD believe is needed to keep drunk drivers off our roads.
There were many times in the past that we became frustrated and almost resigned to the fact that this center would never open.
But Mr. Hayden, Mr. Gimbel, MADD and others persevered and found a way to make this facility happen.
We would also like to thank the treatment program, Right Turn, for its dedication to this project, and we wish them success with their endeavor.
Donna Becker
Towson
The writer is state chairperson of the Maryland Mothers Against Drunk Driving.