In the United States, there is an approximated 1.5 billion hours of health care that families provide at home every year for children and spouses with serious health problems and special health care needs (Romley et al., 2017). This state, as a result, causes the families to experience adverse psychological, health, and employment effects. Employers and by extension, the government has to incur the lost working time the employees take off to attend to their dependents. In effect, the medical costs and lost days off work would put the employees at risk of losing their jobs.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993 requires that employers maintain the health insurance and other employee benefits during the period they are on the family and medical leave. This practically implies that the employees’ jobs are secured and that their medical covers are kept current. The employers will, therefore, incur extra costs in temporary replacement of the employees who are on FMLA-provided leave which is, of course, not very pleasing to the employers. The provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010 requires the employers to cover for the employees but it is unclear whether the dependents of the employee will be covered as well or will get federal subsidies to cover their health separate from the employee through other exchanges such as Children’s Health Insurance - Medicaid programs (Pear, 2012). It is for these reasons, employers would want to fire employees with dependents suffering from serious health problems.
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This reality leaves many employees with fears concerning their job benefits should their dependents get into serious health problems that will force them to take leave off work to provide home care and attend to other special needs of their sickly dependents. These are among the many dilemmas that spark serious debates among employees who may have had some of their own go through such miseries. Employees are therefore protected by the provisions of the ACA (2010) and are at liberty to present their cries through legal means and other negotiated forums. Robert Pear (2012) argues that according to PPACA (2010), “…employers with 50 or more full-time employees must offer affordable coverage to those employees” (Pear, 2012). Following this regulation, many employers complied by offering family coverage to their employees while others did not. This family coverage is however too costly, especially when the employers provide Silver or Gold metallic levels of coverage. Employers are thus left to manipulate their medical plans for dependent costs in such a way that it does not create financial difficulties for workers and their families in order to maintain employee loyalty and retention of best talents (DeRigne, 2012).
Children are God-given blessings whose health care must be given a lot of priority. Care for children is an assurance of our care while we are in old age. This truth has a basis in the Biblical teachings in the book of Proverbs 17:6, “Children’s children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” It is important, therefore, for employers and employees to remember that aging is real and is associated with health challenges that will need the caregiving services and if we do not care for the children now, our olden days are doomed. The Bible further reaffirms this fact in Psalms 127:2-5, “Lo, children are a heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of the mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate” (Holman Bible Staff, 2013). The security and future of a nation are in the children and so a nation must provide for their welfare. These are critical integrations that must inform sound policy making in matters children’s health; children must be assured of accessible, affordable and quality health care and coverage.
References
DeRigne, L. (2012). The Employment and Financial Effects on Families Raising Children With Special Health Care Needs: An Examination of the Evidence. Journal of Pediatric Health Care , 26 (4), 283-290. doi:10.1016/j.pedhc.2010.12.006
Hollenbeck, J. R., Noe, R. A., & Gerhart, B. A. (2018). Human resource management: Gaining a competitive advantage . New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education.
Holman Bible Staff. (2013). Holy Bible: King James Version . Nashville: Holman Bible Pub.
Pear, R. (2012, December 31). Employers must offer family health care, affordable or not, administration says. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/01/health/employers-must-offer-family-health-care-affordable-or-not-administration-says.html
Romley, J. A., Shah, A. K., Chung, P. J., Elliott, M. N., Vestal, K. D., & Schuster, M. A. (2017). Family-Provided Health Care for Children With Special Health Care Needs. American Academy of Pediatrics , 139 (1).
