By Hanh Kim Quach
Health Access California

A new study by UC Berkeley Labor Center provides a vivid example of how today's market is driving in the wrong direction: even workers in what used to be considered "good" jobs with benefits and a union are suffering serious reversals when it comes to healthcare. The most dramatic example: grocery store workers.

As many may recall, in 2003, grocery workers went on strike for a better contract. One of the big issues was healthcare, and the fight centered on the rising costs.

Supermarket chains - such as Ralphs and Vons (a Safeway Company) - emerged from that conflict with the ability to delay *offering* coverage for a year. Before the contract, workers qualified for coverage after four months. After the contract, workers had to wait 12 months to qualify for health insurance.  Workers who wanted to cover their family members had to wait 30 months.

The impact on workers has been astonishing.  UC Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education released this study in January that details - essentially - how much money big chain supermarkets are able to save in healthcare costs because fewer workers are getting health insurance.

http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/press/coverage_healthcare_grocery07.shtml

Before the contract, 94 percent were eligible for coverage and 94 percent of workers took up coverage.

After the contract, only 66 percent of workers are eligible for coverage, and 54 percent of workers take up coverage. That means only half of new workers take up the coverage.

Other effects: turnover is higher (52 percent, compared with about 20 percent in 2003); workers are seeing the doctor less often, delaying or going without their care.

So when you hear proposals to let "the market" sort things out, remember the friendly person who checks you out at your local market: she or he is on the losing end of changes in our healthcare...and if things keep going this way, any one of us might find ourselves stuck in the same position -- holding the bag on healthcare.

March 18, 2007 at 01:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0)

Anthony Wright
Executive Director, Health Access California

A new father has to work two jobs just to make sure his family has healthcare coverage and can afford to pay the $400 a month it costs. In the meantime, he’ll be missing much of his daughter’s childhood.

A mother worries so much about her uninsured teenage son that she bans him from playing basketball, fearful of a sports injury.

A healthy, fit woman in her 50’s battles insurance companies over an earlier diagnosis that now prevents her from purchasing healthcare in the individual market.

These are just a few of the 35 million healthcare stories in California, and as California’s elected leaders weigh how to help make our healthcare work better for all Californians, it’s time to make sure they’re listening to us.

This website is a place to share stories and (soon) videos, as well as a place to learn about what’s happening in the healthcare reform debate this year. It is a place to take action and weigh in on reform. A place for US to decide about OUR healthcare and take responsibility for something that matters so much to each and every one of us.

We are a coalition representing over 9 million Californians, and we are coming together to claim the strongest and most central voice in healthcare reform. After all, It’s OUR Healthcare!

March 17, 2007 at 01:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | Trackbacks (0)