Several newspapers recently published columns addressing health care coverage. Summaries appear below.
Eduardo Porter, New York Times: Porter addresses the tax break projected to cost $130 billion next year to allow workers "to receive health insurance coverage from their employers without having to pay income taxes on whatever it costs." Although subsidizing health insurance might "seem a worthy effort, ... it is among the most inefficient spending in the nation's fiscal arsenal," Porter writes. According to Porter, "the subsidy as designed promotes wasteful medical spending, encouraging the wealthy to buy more insurance and to use more health services than they need," in addition to "going to the wrong people." About 45 million U.S. residents lack health insurance, Porter notes, adding that the "government could go a long way toward solving the problem" by "reallocating money already devoted to health insurance" and "focusing the bulk of the money on the bottom end of the income distribution." However, "[t]his health care revolution ... is unlikely to catch on nationally anytime soon" because "it would force higher-income families to buy health care without a tax break," which is "as politically suicidal as abolishing the mortgage tax deduction," he says (Porter, New York Times, 12/18).

Carol Hymowitz, Wall Street Journal: As a "growing number of companies have cut or eliminated" health insurance and retirement benefits for employees and retirees, some companies are "continuing to offer health benefits to all employees while seeking ways to contain rising health care costs," Hymowitz writes in the Journal. According to Hymowitz, "Such an approach requires innovative thinking, careful research and lots of communication with employees to get them to become more savvy health care consumers," as well as "top executives who understand that providing health benefits can help the bottom line by fostering employee productivity and loyalty." Hymowitz profiles several companies that work to provide health insurance to employees while keeping costs low (Hymowitz, Wall Street Journal, 12/19).

Ian McDonald, Wall Street Journal: McDonald in the Journal profiles new accounting rules established by the Financial Accounting Standards Board that will require companies to list retiree pension and health care obligations in their balance sheets, rather than in financial-statement footnotes. The liabilities will "take a bite out of shareholder equity, ... likely rattling some investors who thought better of their holdings," McDonald writes. According to McDonald, "While S&P 500 companies have funded 88% of their pension obligations, they've only set aside enough cash to cover less than 22% of their expected other bills for post-employment benefits plans, partly because they aren't required to put aside money for those plans as they are for their pensions." The new rule "could trouble investors," and the "balance of equity relative to debt could cause companies to violate agreements they have with lenders," he says (McDonald, Wall Street Journal, 12/19).

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