^{Posted on May 26, 2004}

Freelance workforce vulnerable

PR Newswire
May 25, 2004
Educated, Working, Well Paid … and No Health Insurance: A Conundrum for
Growing Freelance Workforce in New York City

The 2004 Working Today Health Insurance Affordability Survey gauged the perceptions of more than 4,000 New York City-based freelancers,independent
contractors, temps, sole proprietors and others who make their living in a
range of industries, such as media, entertainment, financial services, marketing, IT and the arts.

There are upwards of one-and-a-half million independent workers in New York
City, and tens of millions around the country (up to 30% of the nation’s workforce), according to published reports.

Among the survey’s key findings:

84% of NYC’s freelancers say it’s difficult for them to afford health insurance.

Nearly all (95%) of NYC freelancers without health insurance say the primary reason they lack it is because premiums of private carriers are too expensive.

Nearly half (47%) of NYC freelancers say they had gaps in health insurance coverage, or no coverage at all, during the past two years - and the vast majority (88%) blame high costs.

85% of those who experienced gaps avoided medical care during these times.

Sara Horowitz, Executive Director of Working Today:

“The rapid growth of the Form-1099 labor pool represents a fundamental shift
in the economy, yet the health insurance system remains geared solely to the
W-2 employment model. Most freelancers are too rich for public assistance
programs, and too poor to afford the premiums demanded on the open market.
It’s really appalling that millions of productive members of our society are falling through the cracks in an area as basic as health care.”

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/05-25-2004/0002180966&EDATE=

The full Working Today report, Educated, Employed and Uninsured
http://www.workingtoday.org/advocacy/affordabilityreport2004.pdf

Comment: Proposals strengthening employer-sponsored coverage will never
adequately address the access and affordability issues faced by the tens of millions of freelancers in our nation. And individual mandates cannot ever fill the need if coverage remains unaffordable for freelancers.

Both single payer and health service models of reform promise universal, equitable, comprehensive coverage within a framework of genuine affordability. Other models fail to adequately contain costs and fall short on comprehensiveness and equity. Do we really need yet more studies of how lousy our system of funding health care is before we move forward with reform that will work?

Most Americans would prefer a publicly-administered insurance model to a government-owned health care delivery system. Shall we keep wasting valuable
time looking at the other inferior options, or shall we move ahead with single payer reform now?