United HealthCare has recently announced its partnership with the National Restaurant Association. They are joining forces to help an industry that has a higher prevalence of the uninsured: food service workers. Many of these employees work part time, which either leaves them ineligible for health insurance or unable to afford their employers’ offerings. Moreover, workers are highly transient in the industry, possibly switching jobs before any required waiting period lapses.
Due to these and several other factors, estimates state that there are up to six million restaurant employees who are uninsured. They are 10 percent of those currently without health insurance, often pointed to as an example of the necessity of comprehensive healthcare reform. Granted, those estimates do not detail how many restaurant employees are undocumented immigrants, who are not covered by the legislation regardless.
The majority of restaurants are run by small business owners. Like other small businesses, independent entities and franchisees alike have been squeezed by soaring group health insurance expenses. In many cases, they forgo offering coverage altogether. Next year, the industry’s premier lobbying group (the National Restaurant Association) looks to change that, with the assistance of United Health.
What are their proposals for making health insurance more affordable to their employees? First, United Health Care will soon launch a dedicated website with a list of health coverage options at a variety of levels. The Web portal will include both employee benefit options and discount individual choices; the latter in the event that a restaurant refuses to offer insurance. However, UnitedHealth is adamant that their small group options will include catastrophic coverage and preventative care for 10 to 20 percent less than standard offerings in the market.
There are several catches: United reserves the right to continue denying coverage to employees with pre-existing conditions until the federal healthcare reform law bans them from doing so in 2014. In addition, the Web portal is only a pilot program at the moment. It will launch in Colorado and Pennsylvania initially. Within the next year, several other states will follow suit.
If the program is successful, United HealthCare and the NRA plan to expand nationwide. They also hope to create specialized small group health insurance coverage options geared specifically towards restaurants and their employees in the future, which may further lower rates.
