Rising Health Care Costs Take Bite out of Webmasters
There has certainly been a lot of talk about health care in recent weeks, as President Obama campaigns for
Health care reform would likely help webmasters.
health care reform.
The growth in the cost of health care has been staggering over the past ten years. Since 1999, health care premiums have gone up a whopping 131 percent! This compares to workers’ wages which have risen 38% against 28% inflation in the same time period.
Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose to $13,375 annually for family coverage this year, according to the Philadelphia Business Journal. Employers are, on average, picking up only $3,515 of that cost and employees are paying $9,860.
Workers who are most likely to not have health benefits at work are those at smaller employers. Only 46% of employers with less than ten employees offer health benefits today. Sixty percent of all companies offer health care to its employees.
Employers, in this economic downturn, are simply unable to absorb the costs of spiraling health care. Has there been any thought in President Obama’s plans to subsidize small businesses so that they are encouraged to offer health care benefits to employees?
It would seem to me that people who work in the internet business with blogs and web sites are struggling with health care costs. Since many webmasters are entrepreneurs, this full amount comes out of their pockets. Moreover, since internet workers tend to be younger, they are right at the age of child-bearing and that will raise premiums too.
I don’t know what the answer is with all of the spending by the current administration. Hopefully, it will fix the unemployment problem and improve the crumbling infrastructure of some of our bridges and buildings. But, a person who goes to work every day, either for another company or himself, should be able to afford health care coverage.
