Healthcare 101

By Adam Joseph Noe

Ohio CAN do something about the uninsured! (All facts and figures are cited from the Kaiser Family Foundation website @ statehealthfacts.org)

There are 1.2 Million uninsured Ohioans and 3 Million Ohioans on public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid. we spend 13.3 Billion Dollars per year in Ohio to insure those 3 Million Ohioans with the public systems. These systems are costly and somewhat inefficient and there is a better way to cover these individuals and families.

The average cost of a single health plan, whether through an HMO or PPO or some other means is around $4,500. On Average an employer pays around $3,700 of that cost per year and the person pays $700 per year. With a family plan the average cost is around $12,000 per year and the employer pays about $8,800 while the family pays about $3,300 per year. These numbers provide the benchmark for what the state should be paying per capita or per family to insure its employees and thus should be the benchmark for covering all of Ohio's residents.

If you add up the money the state and federal governments put into Medicare and Medicaid for Ohioans it totals up to 13.3 billion and the total of uninsured Ohioans combined with the total on public healthcare programs is 4.2 Million residents. This provides the government with around $3,000 per capita to put into healthcare INCLUDING the uninsured in Ohio (even the unemployed who are uninsured whose healthcare costs are usually passed onto the taxpayers anyway). This is only $700 shy of where we need to be, so where does this $700 come from? It comes from the unisured employees paying an extra 2.5% income tax, which under the average income would lead to $700 and an extra 2.5% tax penalty on the employer who does not provide his/her full-time employees with health coverage (another $700).

These numbers can all be recalculated with the costs of families in mind and the math still works out just fine for Ohio. This plan would allow the government to purchase the same PPO plan that many government employees enjoy for everyone in Ohio. As someone who was raised with this plan in the household of a city worker I know just how great this plan is and know that the state would be able to buy it at a much lower rate than the average employer would ever be able to because of the huge number of plans they would need to purchase.

This would give small businesses the chance to provide their employees with a great healthcare plan at a much lower cost than they could ever afford. Healthier employees are more productive, happier, and foster the growth of their employer. This is the true future for Ohio and those on fixed income would still be able to afford to buy in an likely save significant money every year on out-of-pocket expenses that add up on public healthcare plans such as Medicare and Medicaid.

This plan would help Ohioans take care of one another and take care of many of our fiscal concerns surrounding public healthcare systems.