If your employer isn't paying for it, demand a raise...
Employers that don’t provide health insurance, or at least pay for part of it like most employers do, are probably not going to have money or the inclination to give raises either. All you can do is find a better job with better benefits, but of course that’s easier said than done. And of course it would be impossible for everyone in that position to just find better jobs with better benefits because there just aren’t enough good jobs like that for everyone.
Our economy flourishes as well as it does because we have plenty of cheap labor. Health insurance costs are a big part of labor costs, and these costs just keep going up at a rate well above normal inflation. Even if an employer only pays half of the premium, like mine and probably most others, the costs can be staggering. My employer is paying about $420 per month for my family coverage, as am I. It’s getting ready to go up too, a lot. Right now they’re paying over five grand a year for my health insurance, and it’s going to keep increasing at a rate probably two or three times the rate of normal inflation, for thousands of employees. I believe that the national average premium increase for health insurance plans has been in the neighborhood of 10% per annum for many years now. A lot of employers are finding that they cannot afford it anymore. They’re getting rid of insurance or requiring employees to pay a bigger percentage of the premiums. Our city used to provide city employees free health insurance, but now they’ve announced that they are getting ready to start making employees pay part of the premiums. It will amount to a pay cut for city employees (clerks, police, etc.) who already work for peanuts. These people could all look for better jobs. But are there enough better jobs to go around? I don’t think so. Other employers out there are having the same issues with health insurance, and it’s even more a problem for employers with a lot of low earning employees because health insurance is going to be a much bigger part of the total compensation these employees earn than it is for high earners. Big insurance cost increases every year quickly make cheap labor not so cheap. For these businesses to stay competitive their employees are going to have to bear most of these cost increases.
I know that’s true in many states, but the rates are fairly reasonable in California. A few years ago, when I was in my early thirties, I paid for my own medical and dental insurance and it cost about $125 a month. I think individuals should be willing to pay at least as much for health insurance as they do for cable TV.