President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare bill helped to worsen an already dreadful situation. With more subsidies and more regulations, President Obama helped to make decades of bad healthcare policy even worse, by continuing the tradition of artificially increasing the demand for care (subsidies) while restricting the supply (regulations).
With insurance being conflated with actual care, few people are able to understand why seeing a doctor and obtaining treatment for an illness or an emergency is so expensive, which prompts alternatives to pop up everywhere across the country – especially after Obamacare made it even more expensive for employers to help employees cover their healthcare bills.
Now, large companies like Apple are taking an independent approach to this problem by opening their own clinics.
This approach helps companies both help employees and keep track of how they are using healthcare resources, helping employers save in the process.
So far, at least one-third of all companies with more than 5,000 employees offer general medical clinics in-house, a ten percent increase from the number of firms doing the same in 2012. Employers like Apple are some of the most well-known firms bringing healthcare to its premises, but not the only one. Amazon is also opening clinics in Seattle.
This model isn’t anything new. Prior to big tech offering employees convenient care access, occupational health clinics existed in industries and other manufacturing work sites where employees are often under physical stress. Still, the fact these clinics are expanding and offering a larger array of services shows that firms are preferring to take on the task of providing high-quality healthcare to its employees than to bear the cost of simply covering their insurance or having sick workers avoid seeing a doctor because of the cost.
It’s almost as if companies knew that having insurance doesn’t equal having access to care.
Employers Benefit From Helping Employees
Critics of capitalism often claim that what drives capitalism is greed. But once upon a time, socialism advocates would tout that socialism would provide material abundance, whereas a market economy would only produce more misery.
Regardless of their ever-changing claims, the reality is that employers see a benefit in making sure they are helping employees stay healthy.
As Mercer Worksite Clinics Consulting Group Leader David Keyt told reporters, “employers are finding measurable value in providing high-quality healthcare and patient experience via worksite clinics.”
According to the data, giving employees access to care means that employees are using them for preventive care instead of only running to the doctor when problems get out of hand. As such, workers become more productive.
In addition, these companies are actually seeing a 1.5 or higher return for every dollar invested in on-site clinics. That means employers are saving a pretty penny while seeing their profit margins increase.
As you can see, the market provides even in a congested, overly restricted, and harshly regulated environment. Can you imagine what we would be able to accomplish if the government got out of the way?
Sign in with Email