Still Needed: Health Care Solutions

From the Baltimore Sun:

The decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last week to uphold a lower court’s decision declaring Maryland’s Wal-Mart law unconstitutional was greeted with a collective yawn in Annapolis. Small wonder. Few expected a reversal by such a conservative court. But more important, the debate over health care has moved on; it’s gotten bigger than that…

Still, the 4th Circuit’s decision is relevant in this regard: The federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) that tripped up Wal-Mart could potentially do the same to Massachusetts-style employer mandates. If so, Congress and the White House will need to intervene. States need the flexibility to deal with a health care crisis that Washington has all but ignored.

From the New York Times:

Companies are proving that when it comes to health care, you can re-teach old dogs an old trick. On-site health clinics in the workplace, which had been disappearing since their peak in the 1970s, are staging a comeback. Corporations are waking up to the fact that healthy employees are more productive, while sick workers are a drag on the bottom line. And they’re trying to do something about it.

The sky-high cost of health care in the United States isn’t just a challenge for the families that struggle to pay rising premiums and co-payments. It’s also a serious issue for American companies, whose competitors in other countries often benefit from national health insurance programs.

• Click here to learn more about the high cost of Wal-Mart’s health care.
• Click here to read about Handshake With Sam, Wal-Mart Watch’s agreement of shared principles offered in good faith to the executives and board members of Wal-Mart.

Posted by Russ Fagaly on Monday, January 22, 2007