How Will the Healthcare Bill Affect the Construction Industry?

After spending fifteen excruciating minutes scouring the web in search of details on the recently passed Heathcare Bill, I’ve realized that it is very difficult to nail down exactly what the changes are and how they will affect the working World and specifically the construction industry.  From what I gather, the main objective was for the federal government to provide or make available affordable healthcare for the roughly 35 million uninsured in this country.  But how the bill will affect people insured by their employer or who purchase health insurance on their own remains a mystery in my opinion.  So the short answer is, I don’t know.  But the long answer probably involves seeing exactly what happens.

I could never really figure out how healthcare and employment got all wrapped together.  Your employer doesn’t have much to do with your health, and at least not more than they have to do with your house or you car.  Employers don’t provide car insurance, or homeowners insurance, so why would they provide health?  Regardless, it has become the norm that employers provide this benefit and people have come to expect it along with the high premiums that are shared between employers and employees.

I was originally under the impression that the new Healthcare Bill was going to provide government health benefits to all citizens, but as it turns out, that is far from the case.  It seems to me that the system will stay largely in tact with some added regulation as to what insurance companies can and cannot do when it come to providing or denying benefits to policy holders, ultimately resulting in a more policy holder friendly environment.

By employers providing health insurance, there is certainly an added necessity for people to have a job that provides these benefits.  It also gives employers the ability to hold employees in place at their company who may be in fear of losing health benefits.  Salary is something that people can probably go without for a while, but health insurance is nearly a necessity unless you are interested in taking on significant risk.  And most people are not.

If all citizens were given the opportunity to purchase affordable healthcare, employees would be much more likely to switch companies or go out on thier own, and this is certainly not in the best interest of employers.  But how this particular bill will affect the likelihood of employees venturing out on their own or to other organizations still remains to be seen.

Could this bill spark a frenzy of entrepreneurial spirit and drive positive change to a stagnant industry?  I hope so.

Tags: Construction blog, Construction Economics, John Poole