Wrong Solution for the Uninsured
Editorial
The New York Times
October 17, 2005
As well-meaning legislation goes, it would be hard to beat the law recently approved by the New York City Council over the veto of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It requires certain large grocers to provide health care benefits for their employees. The law – like a handful of similar efforts from Long Island to San Francisco – is a response to the growing strain on Medicaid and other government assistance programs from uninsured workers.
A major inspiration for the legislation is clearly Wal-Mart. One report showed that nearly 9,000 Wal-Mart workers needed public insurance in Wisconsin, and that more than 10,000 children of the store’s workers in Georgia were treated at taxpayer expense. The list goes on. Fed up, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are in various stages of trying to force the big employer to take care of its own.
While it’s easy to sympathize with the frustration of local governments left holding the bag, this kind of piecemeal legislation is no answer. For one thing, it’s very possibly illegal – federal law generally protects employers from this kind of local mandate. And while it’s emotionally satisfying to take a whack at the big-box stores, it hardly addresses the real problem. In New York, caring for the city’s working uninsured costs more than $600 million annually, according to a Columbia University report. Wal-Mart can’t be blamed for any of that, as it has been unsuccessful in pursuing a site in the city.
The nation’s health care problems are too complicated to be addressed by a chock-a-block system of overzealous, homespun laws that fail to address the overarching problem of the uninsured and may not hold up in court, anyway. The problem cries out for a federal solution. Without some kind of aid, many small businesses would crumble under the cost of health care benefits – which the New York City law estimates at $5,000 per employee per year.
For right now, there is a commendable effort in Congress to post on the Internet the names of employers with large numbers of workers on public aid, the idea being that shame can be an effective weapon. The same kind of shame, however, should also be aimed at Washington lawmakers who have done nothing to solve the larger problem, the crying need for national health insurance.