Nanny insurance: Great idea but who can afford it?

By Christopher Noxon

LOS ANGELES (Reuters Life!) - Like most of my friends here in the cozy, progressive-minded state of California, I believe American health care is a national disgrace. I believe it's an outrage that 50 million Americans lack health insurance and that care for the insured is so often refused, or else insufficient or just plain sloppy.

Of course this righteous indignation doesn't amount to much, beyond feeling jealous of Canadians, justifying my Starbucks habit because I heard they cover their baristas, and cheering through Michael Moore's "Sicko."

So I guess that makes me a flaming liberal. But I'm also, I admit, a raging hypocrite.

Why? Because in addition to being a relatively well-off lefty, I'm also an employer; eight years ago, my wife and I hired a devoted, capable and impossibly sweet El Salvadoran immigrant to help with the kids while we're at work.

And while I'm the first to rail against stingy corporations and slime-ball politicians for their failures to provide decent health care, I'm less likely to admit that my family's single full-time employee is uninsured. Meaning that when my nanny gets sick or needs a checkup or gets a cavity, she's on her own.

We're not breaking any laws -- our nanny has a green card and we pay federal and state withholding taxes. Besides, small private employers like us aren't legally required to provide insurance.

It's also surprisingly easy to justify something that's done by so many. According to a 2003 survey by the International Nanny Association, 80 percent of nannies don't receive health insurance from their employers.

But just because we can get away with it doesn't mean we should. Any halfway compassionate parent who sees the shoddy and exploitative care available to the uninsured must conclude that they have a moral obligation to do what they can to help. The county hospital in Los Angeles looks more like a Civil War triage tent than a modern medical facility. Patients often wait six or seven hours for a cursory exam with an overworked, underpaid intern.