Easton business owner Richard Master has seen year after year double-digit increases in the health insurance rates of his business, and after investigating where some of the money goes, he felt a need to do something about it – for his sake and for other businesses.
The founder and owner of MCS Industries Inc. of Easton, which employs 110 people and pays $1.5 million a year to provide health care to its employers and their dependents, Master wanted to find a way to redirect the national health care reform discussion to focus on the need to help businesses and their employees survive rocketing insurance costs.
And his way was through a documentary film.
He and Easton filmmaker Vincent Mondillo spent two years developing “Fix It – Healthcare at the Tipping Point” – a 58-minute video which features health policy experts, economists, business leaders and physicians. The documentary was filmed in the Lehigh Valley and in other parts of the nation.
“Imagine how our economy could prosper and how many new jobs would be created if we could redirect wasteful health care spending back into our businesses, schools, infrastructure and other critical areas of our economy,” Master said.
Master said the goal of the documentary is to converse with business owners, chief executives, financial officers and others on a plan to unite and insist on “scrapping our complex and needlessly expensive multi-payer system.”
Master and Mondillo have been hosting a series of private showings throughout the Lehigh Valley and other parts of the country and, according to Master, they have been gaining positive responses from business leaders.
“When business leaders look at the single-payer model they come to the conclusion that it is the least-expensive, the most supportive of a free market, and will have the most direct positive impact on the costs of their operation,” said David J. Steil, a former state legislator and owner of Micro Trap Corp. in Morrisville. He was one of the business owners interviewed in the documentary. “It is time we realize that we don’t have to tolerate a system where one of every $3 is wasted.”
“Fix It” will be shown in a free public screening on April 4 at 7:30 p.m. at the Frank Banko Alehouse Cinema at ArtsQuest Center at SteelStacks in Bethlehem. For information, contact ckowal@mcsframe.com.
Master and Mondillo also are working with health care advocacy groups across the nation to introduce the documentary to other business leaders.
