Employer Provided Health Benefits

Business Ethics Healthcare

The ethics vs. The economics of healthcare and coverage today

In the United States today, employers are usually not legally responsible for providing employees with health benefits. Only a few states require employers to provide workers with health care insurance. In other words, an employee has the choice of accepting or rejecting a job that does not provide him or her with health benefits, depending on whether he or she determines such a course of action to be prudent for him or herself. The employer may chose to provide health benefits to an employee or not, extending the option as part of an initial contract of employment, or later on during the employee's tenure at the company.

Findlaw for Business, 2003, "Employee's Rights) The employer's decision to do so will usually depend on the type of employee his or her business needs to attract to remain financially stable. Extending health benefits are one way of attracting a desirable employee. Usually, the company will do so if this is financially in the company's interest. However, there is another concern, if the business owner is ethically responsible to provide employees with health benefits?

Certainly, this is not true in all cases. What of a business that primarily employs part-time workers such as middle-class college students or high school students, for example, whom are likely to be covered under either their university or parent's health care plans? What of this possible scenario, one might ask, of a small business owner who is barely staying afloat in the economy? Having to provide healthcare benefits to all of the employees in question could bankrupt such a small, intimate or developing company, causing no benefit to either the employer or the (briefly) 'covered' employees. A place of work that employs freelance workers whom are paid 'by the piece,' whether this be a piece of writing for a newspaper or a work of graphic art, does not make the same commitment to that employee's potential future in the company as a company that does employ full-time workers. Thus, it would seem sensible to suggest that the ethics of a business always providing health benefits to its workers is not universally true. Although "American businesses remain committed to providing employer-sponsored health insurance, 92% say they are likely to increase the amount that their employees pay for health insurance premiums next year." (Smartpros editorial staff, 2003) "The national survey of 600 large and small businesses shows that companies of all sizes expect health insurance costs to jump an additional 18% over the next year. This comes on the heels of an increase of approximately 14% in 2002." (Smartpros editorial staff, 2003) Faced with rising costs, predicted up to 18% by the Robert Woods Johnson foundation, over the course of the next five years, "businesses are increasingly likely to drop coverage, especially if it is a small business that has fewer than 50 employees." (Smartpros editorial staff, 2003)

However, what of a large corporation, for whom it is feasible to extend healthcare benefits to its employees? Fred Frost, president of the South Florida AFL-CIO. "Already, eight out of 10 uninsured people in the U.S. are in working families, but are either not offered health insurance through their employer or cannot afford it when it is offered." (Smartpros editorial staff, 2003) What also of a business where the individuals laboring for the business incurs a certain constant level of risk to their person? Of course, employees chose to take such a risk, in exchange for their employment. But employing workers in hazardous occupations, whom might take these occupations out of desperation, nor be fully aware of the substantial dangers to their person over the course of every workday, certainly seems unethical. Thus individuals in manual laboring occupations such as installing swimming pools or lawn care should, ethically speaking, receive some coverage if injured on the job or for long-term stress-related injuries related to the work that they perform. From an ethical if not a legal perspective, if they did not subject their bodies to these hazards, after all, the employer's business would nor could not exist.

The ethical implications of health care would seem to be applicable to other scenarios -- every situation must be analyzed within its own specific context and industry. One of the most vexing questions regarding healthcare, however, is the question if the employer is ethically responsible to continue to provide employees health benefits in situations such as during union contract negotiations. Does the employer have a right to change or remove the health benefits that the employees hired in on? It might seem obvious that the employer has the right to do so, from a business perspective. After all, these benefits might be the very issues being discussed on the negotiating table. The employees are no longer laboring for the company, and any injuries they incur over the course of the strike's picket lines will be due to their own interests, not their employer's.

But should an employee who is afflicted with cancer and a member of a union have to chose between having his chemotherapy treatment and taking part in a strike that he or she believes to be ethical?