Below is a detailed letter from the chair of the Connecticut Public Health Association to the Connecticut General Assembly explaining why the lack of paid sick days is unhealthy for all of us — and for our healthcare system.
Over the past months, we’ve all become well aware of the public health risks associated with a lack of paid sick leave, especially for workers in food service, child care and elder care. But I’d like to ask you to consider another, more subtle, but equally important impact the lack of paid sick leave has on our state: when substantial chunks of our workforce lack paid sick leave, it introduce serious inefficiencies and costs to the health care system as a whole.
Increasing preventive care saves money and makes people healthier. It’s the reason why more employers than ever are implementing wellness programs and establishing on-site health clinics. Unfortunately, not all employees have access to these services.
That’s also why it’s long past time for Connecticut to do the smart thing for our health care system and pass the paid sick days bill, SB-913.
Lack of paid sick leave creates one more barrier to getting the kind of preventive medicine and early treatment that improves health outcomes and reduces costs. We have all heard our doctors stress the importance of screenings for breast or prostate cancer, for example. People with paid sick days have the ability to get those tests in a timely manner.
On the other hand, people without paid sick leave are more likely to delay preventive care. They are also more likely to put off treatment for seemingly minor problems. But small problems turn into large ones. A bad cough can turn into chronic bronchitis, a bad diet into diabetes.
When people can’t miss a few hours of work to see a doctor, they are also more likely to end up seeking care in the emergency room, getting the most expensive care. People without paid sick days are twice as likely to report ending up in the emergency room because they couldn’t get time off work. The lack of paid sick leave impacts the health of children too: a stunning five times as many workers without paid sick days report taking a child or family member to the emergency room because they couldn’t miss work.
All those emergency room visits are costly. According to one analysis, the result is over 25,000 emergency room visits that would be prevented annually in Connecticut with wider access to paid sick days. The study estimates a savings of over $18 million in health care costs in reduced over-utilization of emergency services alone.
Of working Connecticut residents on public health insurance programs like HUSKY or Medicaid, nearly two thirds lack paid sick days. When the cost of their health care goes up, we all pay those inflated health care costs as taxpayers.
It shouldn’t take a mountain of data to make the obvious point: we all have an interest in making our state’s health care system more effective and more efficient. We all have an interest in making sure our state’s citizens can get timely, effective, preventive care.
And we all have an interest in making sure that working people in Connecticut have the paid sick leave they need to get good health coverage.
Please pass the paid sick days bill.
Tracey Scraba, J.D., MPH
President, Connecticut Public Health Association