I also would no longer have to pay for health insurance premiums out of my own pocket every paycheck. I am currently paying 30% of my weekly wages for health care coverage. If I no longer had that and my taxes went up 20% I would actually SAVE money! And I’m someone with employer-provided coverage, people shopping on the exchanges are even worse off. They might welcome no longer needing to pay premiums even if their taxes went up 40%!
I think you are not taking into account the portion of wages a US citizen has to fork over on a regular basis to have health care, even “employer provided” health care. Plus the insecurity of losing that coverage if you lose your job.
I may misremember, but I recall reading that the US healthcare lobby is larger than the military and energy lobbies (the next 2 largest) combined. Might have SOME impact…
I work in county government in the US and get 6- 8 weeks of vacation plus 6 weeks of sick time per year. I travel every year - two international trips and a score of domestic trips.
We have had excellent health insurance that pays for everything for the 30 years I’ve worked there. However, it seems that might be changing in the coming years.
When I started we even had legal insurance which I used to do a will at the time.
I work in the “private sector” in the US and I get 2.5 weeks of vacation time during the year, but for 3 solid months at the end of the year and selected weeks at other times during the year I’m not allowed to take any of it. Also, I get no paid sick time. If I don’t want to lose my job I need a doctor’s note/expiation for any absence longer than a day or two. Which, if my insurer deems the visit “not medically necessary” will cost a minimum of $150 and likely much more than that as literally nothing would be covered, it would all be out of pocket.
At that, my situation is better than some jobs I’ve had that offered NO health insurance and no paid time off.
I stayed with my particular job because of the excellent benefits we have always been provided as well as proximity to my home. Never made a ton of money but always felt like I was taken care of as far as health insurance/time off.
I can’t imagine not having sick time.
I am trying to use my sick/vacation time up before I retire. I would be reimbursed at the end but I’d rather have the time off.
I was also allowed to buy back my military time to increase my pension.
If I wreck my car, I pay my affordable deductible like $500 and I’m covered. If my house burns down, I pay my manageable deductible like $1000 and I’m covered.
The health insurance model is
Pay your premiums
Then pay for copays
Then pay a percentage of the unaffordable medical costs
And your deductible is $1M
And it resets every year.
The point here is that absent a universal system setting the core level of insurance coverage for everyone, there is going to be wild swings in who has access to what (just like there are wild swings in who gets how much vacation time based on where they may work). Some full-time workers in the US have access to very good insurance, and others who are also working full-time may have access to none (e.g. “gig economy” workers, employees of small businesses, etc.).
I can’t understand why people don’t understand this. It’s simple math. I get the impression that they think they would have a ‘new tax’ and have to pay their current insurance premiums. With UHC, you’re still paying premiums (in the form of a tax), but it’s cheaper than what you’re currently paying for private insurance – even though you’re helping to support everybody’s medical welfare.
About half of Americans currently get their health insurance through their employers, and they generally do not, themselves, pay the full cost of their health insurance premium. Arguably, most of them likely do not actually realize how much their current health insurance actually costs.
Most employers these days require employees to pay a portion of the premium, but on average, an employee only pays for about 17% of the cost of an individual policy, or about 29% of the cost of a family policy. (Cite: Kaiser Family Foundation)
If employers were no longer on the hook to provide health insurance for their employees, it’d be a cost reduction for the employer, but I’m highly skeptical that they would pass any of those savings on to the employees as a wage increase.
So, for an American who currently has “group” coverage, they, themselves, are not currently paying anything close to the full cost of their insurance, and it’s entirely possible that they could wind up paying more, out of pocket, for coverage under a UHC program.
The former president gave everyone a letter last Spring, showing how much it costs the company to employ them. (He thought it was useful. Most of us thought it was crass.) My medical insurance – only for me – costs $561.31 per month. I’ve just checked my most recent pay stub, and my share of that is $204.40 per month. So I pay about 36% of the premium. In addition, $50 per month goes into an HSA. So my total medical coverage expenses are $254.40 per month.
Using the numbers from the link I posted earlier, I would be paying $101.38 for private insurance in the UK – less than 1/5 the cost of my current coverage.
My Medicare deduction is $63/month. With UHC, they could increase the employer and employee deductions eight-fold, and it would still be less than my current private insurance. And I’d still have insurance if I found myself unemployed.
Cerebral flatulence. Thank you for the correction.
'Why should I have to pay for those lazy people’s health care? ’ What they miss is that their health care is being subsidised by healthier people, just like it is with for-profit insurance. Only cheaper.
Irrelevant nitpick. I’m not defending an unregulated health care private system.
Socialized agriculture is one which is centrally planned and where all means of production belong to the state and workers receive a fixed wage. By way of analogy that is what is practiced in many universal healthcare systems in western democracies.
Thanks to puzzlegal for the comprehensive and interesting response by the way.
Gross salary of 28k EUR:
France: income tax 31.8%
US: income tax 20.3%
Gross salary of 45k EUR:
France: income tax 41.2%
US: income tax 24.4%
Gross salary of 113k EUR:
France: income tax 59.4%
US: income tax 34.2%
France/US:
Gross salary of 28k EUR: +56%
Gross salary of 45k EUR: +68%
Gross salary of 113k EUR: +73%
Seems like I underestimated for the lower brackets where the median gross income is.
’ What they miss is that their health care is being subsidised by healthier people, just like it is with for-profit insurance. Only cheaper.