News and Views on health insurance reform:
Health reform will help young people avoid brushes with the law: Youth crime and access to health care and mental-health treatment are intertwined, argue the police chiefs of Renton, Auburn and Burien. They make a case for reform that will help young people stay out of trouble. | Seattle Times
The big picture on health reform and cost containment: Imagine a past where, in 1970, private sector health costs had been taken fully onto the federal government’s budget with a dedicated revenue source that made them budget-neutral. If these costs had been managed as effectively as Medicare, family health insurance policies today would cost Americans roughly $7,000, most likely in higher taxes, instead of the $12,400 they actually pay today in insurance premiums. | Economic Policy Institute
Health reform = big benefits for small businesses: The current market for health insurance sticks small businesses with more expensive and more variable risk-rated premiums; offers only limited competition among insurance providers; and higher administrative costs. Workers also lose due to lower overall wages. Small wonder, then, that 59% of small-firm proprietors were in favor of including a government-run insurance option in a new national health insurance exchange (Mainstreet Alliance 2009). | Economic Policy Institute
More To Read
March 24, 2023
Victory! Washington Takes a Critical Step Towards Balancing our Tax Code
Washington state supreme court upholds the capital gains tax
February 15, 2023
Podcast: Getting to Lower Health Care Costs in Washington
EOI's Sam Hatzenbeler joins Washington's Indivisible Podcast to discuss our state's health care costs crisis and what the legislature can do to solve it
February 10, 2023
Thirty years of FMLA, how many more till we pass paid leave for all?
The U.S. is overdue for a federal paid leave policy