This is a diary about healthcare from a personal point of view. Certainly, many people know the ins and outs of this issue far far better than I do (I suggest reading
nyceve if you want to learn lots about it!) . But last night I had a personal conversation that unsettled me deeply.
As someone who since 1995 has benefited from capitalism's best values--earning it yourself, relying on your team, sharing the pain and the glory--I can honestly say that the goals of capitalism, at least as it's practiced in this country, are at odds with the values I have as a person. I believe in helping those less fortunate. I believe in spending most of my profit to lift up those who earn less. The world doesn't work that way, and yet I continue doing my job in the hope to do better by the world. I myself am struggling to pay my monthly expenses, yet hoping to earn enough to give more of it away.
I am a partner in a small business. And when I say small, I mean four people. We're a two-million dollar graphic design firm. I'm the business partner. We have a design director (soon to be partner), a senior designer, and a project manager (plus the senior partner who no longer works for the company but who collects profits as part of a slow buy-out plan, etc)...
Though a partner, I earn a modest living. Of course, I live in the most expensive city in the country. I'm gay, in my late 30s, single by definition (and by law since it's still illegal for me to marry a man in New York, though I have hopes...). As I said, the design director in my company is about to become a partner, and eventually he and I will own the company 50/50.
Last night we had a long conversation about finances. He too is in his late 30s. He's married, with a 3-year-old daughter, and with a second baby due next week. He has a mortgage on a very small apartment in Brooklyn (our office is in Manhattan). His wife has large student loan payments to make every month. He is now more worried and upset about money than I've ever seen him.
Because I insisted upon it nine years ago when we restructured our benefits package, our company pays 100% of our employees' health insurance cost. This is no small amount for a tiny company, even though we only have four people to cover. At close to $600 per month per employee, we're paying almost $30,000 per year simply to cover our employees. (Our level of coverage is indeed extremely good--this was done on purpose, because at the time of setting up the current plan, one of the four employees was battling AIDS, and coverage for his treatments was our top priority). Out of his own pocket, my colleague is paying another $500 per month to cover his wife and their child. This amount will increase next week when their second child is born.
He is distraught. He and his wife are simply not making enough to cover the mortgage, student loans, and health insurance costs, and still have enough to live on week to week. And I can relate, as I too--even without any dependents--am struggling to pay my own loans, bills, and rent every month. Now I assume part of the problem is we're not doing our jobs well enough to be as profitable as we should. We work in a luxury market, and we are paid well by many of our clients. But our expenses, like so many others in this city, have been skyrocketing and are simply too much for us to ever get very far ahead.
Personally, I feel that businesses should be paying for the health coverage of all employees and all of their dependents. And we should be matching employees' contributions to their 401Ks. And obviously, we should be able to give cost of living raises--at the least!--every year. But all of these things are impossible for our company to do. If we did them all, we'd simply have to lay off one or two people--that's a quarter or a half of our staff. And then who would do the work?
Deep down I'm an optimist. We'll get through tough times, I know. We'll figure out ways to squeeze more profit from the work we do. We'll tighten the belt on expenses. We'll trim the health insurance to whatever standard there is for decent coverage and force the employees to make up the differences through increased co-payments and higher prescription costs. But it should not have to be this way. It should be a simple formula, where employing someone costs the company X number of dollars and that person and their dependents are completely covered. Period.
It's time for single-payer health coverage in this country. The current system is broken beyond repair. Small businesses cannot handle the costs. And employees certainly cannot pick up the slack. I'm a middle class man who owns (partially) a successful small business. The whole world has been handed to me. And still I cannot make it work. We must make some serious moves in this country toward a government that truly has compassion for working people. A new system must be developed. I don't know exactly what that system should be. But I can describe the problems with the current system, and I can vote/volunteer/contribute to those who pledge to fix those problems. I urge you to do the same.