It can. Sort of. Depends on the person.
When I was in Hawaii I asked this guy who was a kind of beach bum who only worked odd jobs here and there, what he did if he got sick?
He said he just went to the free clinic.
He said he likes the slow, laid back Hawaiian lifestyle. He said his brother is a rich attorney in NYC and he cant stand that rat race.
Free clinics are not UHC. If that guy cracked his head open on a palm tree he’d be in for a world of debt. Debt that you and I would wind up paying for in higher healthcare costs.
Anyhow, it is hard to distinguish irresponsible people from people with crappy jobs and no coverage.
:smack: See “Lump of Labor Fallacy”
No, its not UHC. But the concept of a free, community paid for health service is kind of the same. It was just my response to the OP.
And, in fact, isn’t this thread the result of the original poster contemplating his retired versus working future in regard to health care options and availability? He is letting it have an effect on his decision.
So based on various posts I’ve seen throughout this thread, I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate and I hope it’s not considered threadshitting. I’m hoping it will spark more discussion and, quite honestly, I suspect there will be those flaming me and my points. Everybody knows my stance so I’m just going to be blatant and extreme and presumptuous and rude and, quite honestly, encourage you all to tear this apart:
Strictly speaking, a state’s or nation’s economy does better when the population is expanding. Babies and kids are consumption machines. They drive everything from the purchases of food to clothing to vehicles to insurance to… well,
everything including inflation.
Strictly speaking, lower unemployment rates make a nation’s or state’s economy better-able to support safety nets like social security, medicare, state Disability insurance and state Unemployment Insurance, as well as Universal Health Care/Insurance. More people earning money and diverting a percentage into the safety net (bucket?) means there’s more money available to pay for the costs of claims. Economists call those Transfer Payments, Republicans decry them as Welfare payments, and Libertarians denounce them as “Stealing my hard-earned money to give to some worthless, lazy, freeloader who should be dead for all I care!”
But, again very strictly speaking, it’s impossible to have a 0% unemployment rate. I suspect it’s not even possible to go below 2% really, though I believe (someone correct me on this) 8% is considered the ideal number.
The fact of the matter is that this little upstart experiment of a country hasn’t been a Democracy for a long time, or even a Republic. It’s a plutocracy.
I’ll wait if you have to go look that up.
Pennies, Power, and Prestige tend to go hand-in-hand-in-hand. The people in power (and those who believe themselves to be in power whether it’s true or not) don’t want equality. And, while economics is ultimately about power, not pennies, the sad fact is that wealth can buy (or rent) certain kinds of power. Meanwhile, certain types of power can influence what is considered prestigious. And as a society moves toward more equality – financial, social, ethnic, biological, whatever – it erodes power and prestige.
The rich stay healthy, the sick stay poor.
…–Bono (U2)
…God, Pt. 2
…Rattle and Hum
…which brings us back to the post. Health is prestigious. There are dozens of gyms and fitness centers near Beverly Hills California. There aren’t so many in Philadelphia. Those with discretionary funds to spend are quite willing to invest in Health Clubs, not only because being healthy is yet another way to enjoy one’s power, but being in-shape is prestigious and being seen at-the-gym is especially prestigious. In the middle ages, one demonstrated conspicuous wealth by being fat. It showed that, unlike the peasants, you had more than enough money to buy food – even foods that were fatty and sugary and made you obese. In the modern age, one demonstrates conspicuous wealth by being smooth-complexioned, healthy, and toned. It shows that you have the time, energy, and money to exert your muscles in a contrived manner – as opposed to doing so because physical exertion is part of your job.
But if everybody has access to good medical care and health? Well, that would make being healthy less prestigious – less of a demonstrable facet of being part of the elite few.
But if you’re an employer, particularly a large fortune-[low numbers] employer with a zero-sum economic mindset, it is a bad thing. This is really just the basics of supply-and-demand, except that we’re talking about the supply of eligible workers – an abundance makes them less valuable, a dearth makes them more valuable. When companies have to compete for suitable workers, they can and will increase their compensation offers (wages/salary, benefits, perks, allowances, etc.). [We saw this in the dot-com boom when kids were dropping out of high school and college to earn high five-digit salaries because they had minds and talent and flexibility to be able to create web pages on that new interwebby thingy.] As older people feel more comfortable retiring and thereby shrink the eligible labor pool, the price for competent qualified workers will go up because companies are competing for fewer available employees. In a manner similar to raising minimum wages, paying those more expensive employees is seen as reducing the profit-pool and possibly even having to sell off one of the dozen house-boats or even downgrade that week in the penthouse suite in Dubai’s Burj Al Arab to just a week at Grosvenor House.
Last, but not least: Even though it’s an American mantra to repeat “Yay, Capitalism!” like some kind of cheerleader, the big mega-businesses don’t actually want dozens of little independent* businesses sprouting up all around. That’s not just ascribing to the Fixed Pie fallacy, that’s also a real understanding of the concept of Market Share: the greater percentage of the market that you can dominate, the more you can influence prices and other standards to be in your own favor. As little upstart businesses start nibbling at your market – showing people alternatives to your product that might be cheaper or somehow better or, in some cases, just not the megacorp’s product – your market share dwindles and your influence wanes accordingly. Furthermore, even the “independent” trades and professions have their Trade Associations and Professional Associations – those weren’t made to welcome people in, they exist to keep people out. They do so by developing minimal qualifications for inclusion and certification, codifying technical knowledge and behaviors, and sometimes even influencing laws that are made – impersonating a police officer or a surgeon is a crime while impersonating an arborist (tree management expert) might not be more than a civil tort.
[COLOR=Black]Okay, that’s enough. Feel free to shred away.
[/COLOR]
—G!
Couple related nits picked: unemployment is defined as “rate of people who are looking for jobs”; it is not the opposite of workforce participation. UHC helps people have babies (you don’t need to put your home in hock just to pay for the delivery of a healthy kid, never mind PICU) and keep children healthy; it and parental leave (another thing in which the US is amazingly backwards) also help people have babies and raise kids, but it is precisely by allowing people to remove themselves from workforce participation without entering unemployment. And yet, if their managers don’t insist in thinking that “what is done by two with only about 10% overtime can be done by one with no overtime” and hire a temp replacement, the actual workforce participation stays the same.
Doesn’t precisely apply if you’re talking only about the OP’s job. Does apply if you’re addressing the market as a whole. The first part of my response was only about the OP.