Young Workers Fight for Affordable Health Benefits
Fact Sheet
Young Workers Fight for Affordable Health Insurance
A Law to Require Medium & Large Employers to Provide Health Insurance
San Francisco Supervisor Tom Ammiano is drafting legislation that would provide new or expanded health coverage to over 55,000 working San Franciscans. The legislation would ensure that all employers with more than 20 employees, or more than $1 million in sales, pay 80% of their employees’ health insurance costs. Supervisor Ammiano’s proposal is based on Proposition 72, which was supported by 69% of San Francisco voters in the November 2004 election.
San Francisco’s Health Care Crisis
One in eight City residents, or 97,500 San Franciscans, are uninsured. Half of us work at least 21 hours per week.
Over 40% of full-time workers under age 25 lack health insurance.
We are not uninsured because we don’t think insurance is important or because we think we’re “invincible.” Over 85% of the uninsured are either not offered or not eligible for health insurance from our employer.
Buying health insurance as an individual is too expensive for the low- and middle-income families that are the vast majority of the uninsured.
We tend to delay or avoid getting the care we need, including screenings and preventative care, ongoing treatments for chronic conditions, and even emergency care, with severe health consequences occasionally including death.
Half of all personal bankruptcies are the result of health problems or large medical bills.
Large Employers Can Afford to Insure Workers
· Most uninsured workers have jobs that can’t leave town: restaurants, retail, construction, and janitorial. These are the industries that rely on young and immigrant workers’ cheap labor and are notorious for abusing workers rights across the board.
· This proposal would be similar to increasing the minimum wage: a broad requirement that would only affect a few bad employers with low wages and bad benefits.
· Increases in the minimum wage have not resulted in significant job losses.
Uninsured workers depend on publicly-funded health services
Uninsured workers have to use public hospitals and community clinics for their regular care, increasing costs for the City’s public health system.
The SF Department of Public Health estimates that The City spends $24 million annually providing health care to patients who are employed but have no health insurance. Businesses that refuse to provide health insurance to their workers are forcing local taxpayers to subsidize their profits.
