Elusive Affordable Health Insurance Coverage for Individuals and Businesses

Welcome to this edition of the Weekly Health Insurance News Roundup. Today we will look at a couple of articles that discuss why affordable health insurance is an elusive problem that won't be solved easily, which is especially hurtful to small businesses and individuals who are uninsured.

The first article, entitled, "Affordable health care elusive for many, though optimism builds" in the Business First of Columbus magazine takes a look at the problem through several viewpoints, such as a business owner, an uninsured small business owner, and an expert, for example. Each of these people have different viewpoints on the health insurance situation in this country, and a lot of them point fingers, mostly at politicians. Many people said that the big hurtles are legislation and financing.

Business owners are particularly feeling the pinch of higher health insurance costs, as many believe that to have good employees, they need to be offered health insurance. This means that less and less businesses are able to offer health insurance to their employees. This also, some believe, prevents a person from even starting their own business to begin with, which doesn't help our economy, since it thrives on small businesses.

There is hope on the horizon, at least in Ohio, where this article is centered. Legislators are proposing bills that help cover children in low-income families across the state, which many see as a positive step in the right direction. This also more confirms my personal belief that, if we are to have universal health insurance coverage, it'll have to be done on a state level if it's to be effective.

The other article we will look at is called "A Crummy Health Bill's Better Than Nothing" on MSNBC in which the author looks at legislation which will help small businesses cope with the rising costs of health insurance and health care. This bill, called The Small Business CHOICE Act, would help make health insurance more affordable for employees by offering tax breaks and buying pools which would help make it easier to find affordable health insurance coverage as well as take the risk out of insuring small businesses in the first place.

These measures will undoubtedly help ease access to affordable health insurance, but to me, they seem like only stopgap measures, band aids that are being put on something that needs much more widespread healing. Hopefully we'll see more positive legislature in this same vein. Until next time, have a happy and healthy day.