Staying at a job to stay healthy
The AFL-CIO released an online survey where almost half of the 26,000 participants said they or a family member stayed in a job just to keep health insurance benefits. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports on a particular case.
Stethoscope lying on money (iStockPhoto)
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Scott Jagow: The AFL-CIO released a new online survey this morning about health care. More than 26,000 people participated. Almost half said they or a family member stayed in a job just to keep health insurance benefits. And one person without insurance even enlisted in the military to get it. Nancy Marshall Genzer has more.
Nancy Marshall Genzer: Barbara Hobbs never let her son play with guns when he was growing up. So she was shocked when he called and told her he'd joined the National Guard. His wife was sick, and that was the only job he could get with health insurance benefits. His mother says he spent a year in Iraq.
Barbara Hobbs: I would think that going to Iraq is a very high price to pay in order for you to get health insurance.
Other people who responded to the AFL-CIO survey kept working past retirement or stayed in dead-end jobs because they offered health insurance.
Heather Booth directs the union's new health care publicity campaign. She says even the insured have problems.
Heather Booth: There's also a question of those who are insured and still can't afford the drug costs, the co-pays.
A third of the survey respondents said they'd skipped medical care because of the cost.
In Washington, I'm Nancy Marshall Genzer For Marketplace.
