A man’s ox died. He told his friend, “How will I plow my field now? I can’t afford $500 for a new ox!”
A couple of days later, his friend comes back and gives hi, $499.50 towards a new ox. The man was thrilled, but asked his friend, “but how did you get this money?”
The friend says, “Simple! I just sold $1000 raffle tickets for 50 cents a piece, with the winner getting your old ox.”
The man asks, “did no one care that my old ox is dead?”
The friend says, “Only the guy who won did, so I gave him his money back.”
OK, so maybe we can’t do Medicare for All. So, howzabout we get as close as we can? Maybe have a bake sale, or skip the fun of another futile and expensive war. Just a thought.
My city is drowning in health care costs. Their “pool” is considered small, just under 100 people. But half of them are in jobs that are physically demanding so they need to be healthy to do their jobs but their bodies take a beating (service and fire/EMT). And more than half are Union (Service, Fire, police) so they demand good coverage with low contributions (which is fine with me). It really puts a strain on the company’s bottom line.
I’ve often wondered why employers aren’t raising up and demanding government sponsored health care. And why when “protecting the small business owner” comes up, nobody is talking about how health insurance costs kill the ability to compete and to hire more workers. Hell, removing the cost of health insurance from any size business can help keep jobs in the US.
Recently during a worker strike of some sort my friend posted about how the workers were going to lose their health coverage if they didn’t get back to work. She had been wondering the same thing I had about businesses not promoting government health care for all. Seeing what power employers hold over their workers by controlling their health insurance made it clear to us why businesses continue to support the private system.
In even worse news, British people who actually benefit from one of the best socialized healthcare system in the world might see it nevertheless sold off for parts to US insurers by Tory assholes who appear to be in awe of just how much blood money and sraight up evil shit their homologues in the Colonies seem to be able to get away with.
Is the company self-insured, meaning that they pay bills out of the company’s resources (of which the employees are supposed to pay a set amount to subsidize it) with the bill-paying being administered by a third party?
Many self-insurers also contract with a reinsurer, which is basically insurance for insurance companies and is designed to cover bills over a certain amount, usually $250,000 from what I have heard.
In any case, our current system isn’t working. The earliest reference I have personally seen to a proposal for nationalized health care was made by FDR in 1932, and honestly, I don’t see the situation being resolved 90 years from now either.