My employer recently sold my part of the company to someone else. I blogged about it back in December but I want to do so again with some fresh thoughts.
This is real to me now. Before the Healthcare problems of this country, while extremely important to me, did not affect me directly.
Now it is personal to me. Before I rant, let me say I'm not blaming my new employer, I'm blaming a broken for-profit health care system.
My old employer, Pioneer Natural Resources, paid $21k a year and covered my family at no cost to me. None!!! We even had our own clinic. Most American's probably don't even realize how much their employer contributes. I'm going to make a total guess here, but I believe when most people hear about the cost of a single-payer system they are not thinking about the money their employers are already putting into the system.
My new employer only pays for my insurance. I will have to pay in $11,900 a year to make sure my wife and kids have insurance. I'm actually going to be okay, I can handle it... it's not going to be easy, but it is doable.
My coworkers can not. Their compensation is based on a 40hr work week even though they put in 96 hrs a week. Mine is based on salary, I put in 84 a week, but it would be the same no matter what. In 2018 their wife and kids were covered. Every sickness, every broken bone, they had insurance.
Some of these guys will have to choose now between bills and coverage.
Now.... we spent $3.4 Trillion on healthcare as a country in 2016. It went up about 4% 2017 and is expected to be up 5.3% after the final numbers for 2018 (Edit - I have the numbers now, $3.6 Trillion).
Conservatives estimate the cost of universal healthcare at 32 trillion over 10 years. Democrats estimate $2.8 trillion. That's $3.2 trillion a year by the con estimate and covers everyone.
By any measure that's a savings of 2 trillion over 10 years.
EDIT: Things have changed since this blog. I have been on Obamacare since May 2020. Read about that experience here.
