Obamacare and the employers

It is frustrating to hear Republicans complaining about what Obamacare is going to do for the people in the future. Brevard Times has an article that gives us a perfect example to work with:

“Gatorland has 135 full-time employees. Gatorland currently pays 80 percent of the insurance cost for these employees," [U.S. Senator (R-FL) Marco] Rubio said. "But now under ObamaCare, evidently what they are doing is not going to be enough.  ObamaCare, first of all, requires them not just to provide insurance but to provide for them a certain type of insurance, a type of insurance that the government has decided is enough."

If this is indeed the case, then I suspect that the insurance that is being provided for the employees is virtually worthless.

My company provides me with what's called Mini-medical insurance. It has a relatively high deductible and a yearly cap on what it will pay. In addition, it won't cover many of the procedures I might find myself needing from a doctor or hospital.

I might have an insurance card in my purse, and it gives me less blank lines when I'm filling out paperwork for the doctor, but many hospitals put my in the category of uninsured because the insurance is so restricted. I could easily do better by paying my own medical bills without the insurance provided by my employer; the money I would save on premiums would more than pay for the substandard coverage provided by my insurance company.

One thing that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) does is to eliminate mini-medical insurance from the offerings. Since mini-medical isn't enough to actually help anyone, there is no point in pretending like it does. Obamacare is essentially telling employers that they have to provide real insurance instead of smoke and mirror policies.

The working people of America need real medical care, not the scraps that some employer decides they will throw our way. If we are going to end the cycle of sick people skipping care until they have to go the emergency room and leave the debt to the hospital, then we have to provide workers with something that will actually pay for their medical care. Any employer that wants to provide their employees with less is simply taking advantage of other people's needs so they can line their own pockets.

Obamacare didn't go far enough, but it is the best that we have right now. If the politicians (I'm looking at you Republicans) actually wanted to help the American people, they should be looking at how to get people even better insurance instead of trying to eliminate the progress we are making toward a better, and more healthy future for everyone.