Health Insurance Articles
Should Businesses Be Mandated To Offer Health Insurance?
2009-10-12
The health insurance debate in Washington has triggered a lot of new proposed legislation and plans to solve the problems with the current heath care system. Some lawmakers support the idea of mandated health care plans. Under these, businesses would essentially be forced to offer some type of health insurance plan to their employees. Mandates always stir up controversy, but in the case of health care, support for a mandate has been building up steam. Here's a look at the pros and cons of mandated business-offered health insurance coverage.
A health insurance coverage mandate would work by creating a strong incentive for businesses to offer high-quality health plans to their employees - if a business didn't offer a health insurance plan, they'd face fees or tax penalties. The obvious benefits of such a mandate would be full health care coverage for American workers. Federal guidelines would ultimately be established to provide for fairly high minimum coverage. Opponents argue that health insurance mandates would put undue stress on companies, especially small businesses. Others argue that tax credits could be offered to businesses that offer the coverage to offset some of the cost. A mandate would also need to clearly state whether businesses would be required to provide health insurance for full- and part-time workers, or just full time workers. In this case, a company could conceivably take advantage of a loophole and downgrade many full-time workers to part-time to avoid paying out a benefit. Legislation would have to plan for these loopholes.
There could potentially be other benefits for businesses under mandated health care proposals. Employees may take less sick days and work harder when health insurance coverage is provided by an employer, and in high-risk industries, supply of jobs would increase. Mandated health insurance would work within the current United States insurance system, and wouldn't require the sweeping overhauls currently being proposed by congress and President Obama. A mandate would not end the problems with American health insurance coverage, but it may be a good start, especially when combined with things like tort reform and tax credits for self-employed individuals.
If a health coverage mandate is deemed necessary, it would probably have to come from the federal level - proposed mandates on local and state levels have had their legality challenged. The Supreme Court will decide on those cases, but it's rather apparent that a federal health care mandate would be legal and potentially viable.
Mandates are integral parts of some of the federal health care bills currently being considered. If a health care mandate is well written, it could be a very strong force for providing for the health care of all Americans.
