Forty five million Americans lack health insurance.
Many times hospitals are the ones who end up paying the bills when people without insurance show up as patients.
In New Hampshire, those unpaid bills totaled about eighty six million dollars in 2004.
A group of union construction workers says hospitals are actually a part of the problem—by hiring contractors who don’t require laborers to have health insurance.
New Hampshire Public Radio’s Kerry Grens has more.
Bright and early in the morning, about a dozen men line a busy entrance to Concord Hospital.
They unfurl a large banner that reads Shame on Concord Hospital and hand flyers to curious drivers who pull over.
These union workers are upset that the hospital doesn’t require health insurance for construction workers on its fifty five million dollar expansion.
Howard: All our members are insured. We provide insurance for all our members.
Joe Howard is an electrician with the IBEW Local 490.
He says union employers pay six dollars an hour per person for health insurance.
And union contractors are losing bids because their benefits policies make them too expensive.
Howard: And they’ll always go with the low bidder. You’re never going to be able to compete with a person who doesn’t provide these things for their workers. It’s very difficult. So across the board—and especially for hospitals—they should require all their contractors to provide health insurance. Every one of them.
The general contractor that did win the bid at Concord Hospital is Gilbane, headquartered in Rhode Island.
Though not all of Gilbane’s subcontractors hire union workers, Gilbane spokesperson Wes Cotter says they all offer health insurance.
Though he didn’t know what the details of those offers were.
Cotter: We hire only good, solid, competent providers who will take good care of their employees. Safety is important, providing a good wage and benefits for the employees is also important.
Indeed, many of the construction workers at Concord Hospital do have health insurance.
Of the eight major subcontractors, five spoke with NHPR.
And all of them say they pay health insurance if their employees want it.
But some don’t want it or receive insurance through a spouse.
There are also a number of workers who don’t qualify for employer health insurance, like temporary labor or independent contractors.
The Center to Protect Workers’ Rights has calculated from Census Bureau data that nationally sixty two percent of non-union construction workers had health insurance in 2001.
Eighty two percent of union workers were insured.
Mark Hounsell of the New Hampshire State Building and Construction Trades Council says hospitals have an ethical responsibility to try and correct that disparity.
Hounsell: It’s just plain good policy. It only makes sense that hospitals take the lead and not throw their hands up and say it’s not our problem. No one else is doing it. Well someone’s got to go first and who better to go first than hospitals? Especially when they’re able to do so much in uncompensated care.
Hounsell said he’d like hospitals to adopt a community standard that requires workers to have insurance—regardless if they are union or not.
Green: I think it would be virtually impossible for us as an organization to adopt a policy like that.
Concord Hospital CEO Mike Green.
Green: Because if you adopt it for contractors and subcontractors, do you adopt it for manufacturers as well? We do businesses with literally hundreds of companies that manufacture things that we buy. I don’t believe it’s our business to tell them how they should deal with their work forces in terms of insurance.
Green says Concord Hospital doesn’t even provide health insurance for all its employees.
He agrees a lack of insurance is a big problem, but not one the hospital can solve.
His advice for unions is to seek legislative action, or work toward government-sponsored health care for all.
SOQ
Since 2000 there has been a 70% increase in health insurance premiums. The current refusal of Concord Hospital , as well as other hospitals in NH , to become proactive and do the right is doing quick and certain damage to our employer based system. Until, state government and hospitals recognize their moral obligation the situation cannot be remedied. Not only will construction workers suffer, but so will teachers and other workers who have employer based insurance. The condition is beyond critical it is now dire and desperate. Wake up Concord Hospital and do the right thing.
Workingmiddleclass