EDIT: Health Insurance Essay

EDIT: I am submitting this essay a little bit early, and I just wanted to say thank you to the people that responded to my post. Its really appreciated!

I put everything about the essay under the cut so people wouldn't have to be bored, but for those who care, I put the finished product under the cut.

Ciao



I have to submit this essay by 05/31 and I was hoping to get some input on what I have written so far. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Guidelines: You must submit an essay with a maximum of 750 words and address the following question: Should corporations be required to provide health insurance to their full-time employees?

My Essay

If corporations were required to give their full time employees health insurance, the benefits would quickly outweigh the costs of lost productivity and effect employees in a positive manner.

If employees automatically had health insurance through their employer, people would miss less work. Employees would be able to see a physician as soon as they became ill or injured, and would not try to wait until a turn for the worst to go to the hospital. This would cut back on shrink, or people calling out, as the needed medications would be provided and the employee would be feeling better sooner, thus cutting out the need to call in sick for more than a day or two in a row. Clients for the corporation would stay happier and the corporation would make more money, benefiting everyone.

According to the National Institute of Medicine, the lack of health insurance causes 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year, due to people not taking their entire prescription of antibiotics. People are doing this in an attempt to save some of their medication if their issue occurred again and mixing those said prescriptions later. Most of these people are undoubtedly employed full time and if corporations covered medical insurance, we could theoretically cut this death toll significantly.

Another benefit to having health care provided to full time employees by corporations is that there would be less bankruptcy and credit card debt. According to the Access Project, half of all personal bankruptcies and one-third of all credit card debt are caused by illness or medical bills. If this were something by corporations, employees could spend more time thinking about their job than worrying about the debt that is piling up on them.

Health insurance is becoming increasingly more expensive for people to keep. A time analysis of 2004 by the Urban Institute stated that there were 45.8 million people without health insurance, including 21 million full time workers and 11.2 % of American children. The United States Census reported in August of 2005 that the number of Americans without health insurance is at a record high of 46 million. This is why I believe that the burden of paying for health insurance for full time employees should belong to the corporation that the employee works for.

If corporations provided full time employees with paid medical benefits, their employees would be healthier and happier. There would be fewer bankruptcies and less debt, which would make for less stress. The death toll from improper medication use would decrease and corporations would be happier because of less loss of productivity due to all of the above items listed. This makes for a win-win situation.