Celebrate New York's victory, but get back to work!
N.Y. Council Backs Benefits Bill
By Amy Joyce
The Washington Post
August 18, 2005
The New York City Council yesterday passed a measure requiring most stores that sell groceries to provide a set level of health care coverage for their workers in a move aimed at forcing companies such as Whole Foods Market Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to change their labor practices.
In New York, 46 of the council’s 51 members voted in favor of the bill, with one member against it. It would require any grocery store with 35 or more employees or other retail stores with 10,000 square feet or more of floor space for food items to contribute $2.50 to $3 for health care for each hour an employee works. That is the average amount that employers in the New York grocery industry that provide health care currently contribute.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (Rep) is expected to veto the measure. It takes 34 votes to override a mayoral veto.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/17/AR2005081701892.html
Comment: The New York City Council should be commended for passing this beneficial measure. Advocates of incremental reform can chalk this one up as a significant victory. Any measure that expands health care coverage should receive the support of all of us.
Although this measure is a definite step forward, it does fall far short of what needs to be done. Perhaps the most important failure is that 90% of the uninsured in New York City will not benefit from this measure. Much more must be done to achieve the goal of universal coverage.
Another important issue is that New York has a regulatory and legislative environment that has required insurers to offer products that are readily available and relatively effective in providing financial security for those with health care needs. This means that insurance premiums are very high in New York because those with needs are included in the insurance risk pools.
Because of our fragmented system of funding health care, New York has little control over escalating global health care costs. Affordability is a major concern to all payers, yet New York and the rest of the nation can do little about it since our fragmented system has relied largely on market forces to control costs. Sadly, the U.S. experiment in private coverage has proven that market forces in health care are not only ineffective, but they have been quite perverse. A strong regulatory environment dampens the perversities, but still falls far short on equity, access, universality, efficiency and the camel-back-breaking straw - affordability.
We need a system that provides mechanisms of containing costs and ensuring that we are receiving quality and value for our health care investment. We need a system that provides access and coverage for everyone. We need a system that is funded equitably. Incremental tweaks of our fragmented system, no matter how beneficial they are, will never get us there. We really do need a single payer system.