Funny you mention education. If we had universal healthcare like we had universal school, employers would be off the hook.
Why do employers pay employees anything at all? So that they can afford food and housing, of course. And it is not totally altruistic. Starving employees who have to sleep in a box are probably not great workers. Even slave owners provided food and housing.
Sick employees, and employees worried about doctors bills, are not as productive also. While someone is able to cut down the cost of food and housing, (though cheap crappy food contributes to the health care problem) it is hard to go to discount doctors. What happens is that people get sicker and dump the cost on the rest of us. Same thing if someone pays so little that an employee is forced onto food stamps.
No one owes an employer a profit. If they cannot fully cover the cost of doing business without dumping employee expenses on the rest of us, they should go bankrupt and let someone who can take over. They are just CEO welfare queens, driving their Caddies while dumping their costs on us.
Now, if employers gave employees enough money to buy decent health insurance, especially now we have exchanges. I’d be happy. but you would be whining about how the poor companies just can’t afford it.
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No one owes an employer a profit. If they cannot fully cover the cost of doing business without dumping employee expenses on the rest of us, they should go bankrupt and let someone who can take over. They are just CEO welfare queens, driving their Caddies while dumping their costs on us.
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Dumping the costs that we, the people are foisting on them as part of their ‘cost of doing business’, right? What a load. Basically, if it really WAS the cost of doing business, then that would be a valid argument, but it’s not in most cases. WalMart can and does get all the workers they need without paying for such benefits. We are going to REQUIRE businesses to pay more than they need to in order to get the workers they need. We already do this, in fact, since we set a minimum wage that’s above what the actual labor market would bear for low end, unskilled labor…now we are going to require more. And business should just suck that up because we tell them too.
Well, they probably will just kindly pass those costs on to the rest of us, since in theory this will be across the board. And, of course, since a lot of businesses are huge Fortune 500 companies, it’s going to hurt a lot more, and they are going to have less room to defray their costs by passing it along. I’m thinking particularly of small and medium businesses that do a lot of contract oriented work are going to be particularly hard hit…unless, of course, the promises that costs aren’t actually going to go up for businesses are correct. Seems that’s pretty much not even said anymore, since we are to the point of just telling businesses they need to suck it up, right?
Again, you want companies to pay more than the market warrants for labor at the same time you want them to just suck up those additional costs, and all because you feel they SHOULD pay them…and that those companies should just be willing to take less evil profits. Correct?
Replace “health insurance” with “house”, and why don’t employers have to buy houses for their employees or pay them enough so they can buy a “decent” house?
As I’ve said many times: If we, the people, think everyone should have good medical care, then we, the people. should pay for it. Not foist that responsibility on employers. There is nothing immoral or wrong about an employer not providing HC insurance. There can’t be even a handful of countries on the planet where that is expected.
If they are currently paying health insurance, they don’t have to do anything. Blaming any increases in group insurance premiums on Obamacare is unwarranted and unsupportable. Group insurance has been going up 10-30% per year for the last decade, and is unrelated to Obamacare.
If employers didn’t pay enough for employees to afford any housing, we’d be having a fit about that too. That is why we have minimum wage. And no one is saying that insurance should cover single hospital rooms with hot and cold running nurses. Just the necessities, thanks. Just like with food, there is a minimum. If employers don’t pay enough to let someone get a minimum number of calories, we have food stamps. We now will subsidize insurance. As I said, why again is it okay for employers to dump this on the rest of us? If a company can’t afford to pay its employees, it should go out of business.
I think there are more than a handful of other countries that provide for decent insurance to all. Not third world countries, sure but we aren’t a third world country. Unless that is your goal, where building owners won’t be bothered by pesky inspectors.
If conservatives wanted employers freed from paying for insurance, it can happen. If the Tea Party came out for UHC, the Republican legislators are so chicken-shit it would pass in no time. But we know what is really going on - they think the working poor and their children just don’t deserve a chance to go to the doctor without risking tomorrow’s dinner.
Except that I’ve talked to several small to medium business owners who think, rightly or wrongly, that there will be additional costs on top of the already rising costs. The trouble is, no one really knows for sure how this will all play out, and they are looking at alternatives in case the worst happens.
Hey, we require businesses to spend more than they need to to not pollute and to provide a safe workplace. Tough. That is part of living in society. Of course those who moan and groan about this also oppose unions who try to equalize power between workers and management.
But they are passing the costs along to us already, in the form of higher hospital bills to cover their workers who have to go and can’t pay. Since prevention is cheaper, we’d probably end up paying less. And now we have a level playing field, without any company trying to increase profits by dumping these costs on us where their more moral competitors don’t.
We tell businesses to suck it up all the time. You can’t hire kids, no matter how much that increases your labor costs. You have to pay extra for making hourly people work more than 40 hours a week. I can just see you 115 years ago forecasting doom and gloom if we make businesses uncompetitive this way. But they managed to survive, didn’t they?
I’m assuming that every person has the right to medical care. Maybe that is where the difference is, you don’t seem to. Perhaps you’d be happier if we reduce costs by not even letting the sick into emergency rooms or hospitals. Then they would die on the streets, and be no more problem.
Wait, that won’t work. This would reduce the size of the labor force, which would force an increase in wages, which would cut down on the profitability of scumbag companies, and we can’t have that, can we?
Again, you want companies to pay more than the market warrants for labor at the same time you want them to just suck up those additional costs, and all because you feel they SHOULD pay them…and that those companies should just be willing to take less evil profits. Correct?
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They have no doubt been reading the forecasts of doom and gloom from the right. Such forecasts accompany any change. Hell, Medicare was supposed to make our entire health care system collapse.
And no doubt their accountants, HR and tax people have been as well and are equally duped into saying that no one knows what the actual costs will be! But you know what those costs will all be, right?
In order of responsibility, it should be government, employer, individual.
Because some in this country can’t stomach the fact that government should drive out the for-profit health insurance companies, we have the next best thing. Individuals shouldn’t be held responsible because there is no way 99% of us have enough money laying around to pay for a sudden heart attack or some other major illness. Going bankrupt or die is not a viable option, so employers are on the hook. Maybe if the GOP support single payer universal health care, we can stop standing around pretending employers are the best choice. Government is the best choice.
There is no reason why the employer needs to be involved any more than he should provide food and a house. The reason the individual is first is that most of us actually can afford HC insurance, even if many of us can’t. That’s where the government steps in.
No one needs to pay for medical expenses out of pocket if they have insurance. Please don’t tell me that 99% of us can’t afford insurance.
Now, if we, as a society, decide to go European style Single Payer, then so be it. Put it to a vote and see what we get. This is, first and foremost, a democracy.
Without government mandate of what insurance should cover and that everyone have insurance, there is no guarantee that any insurance for something like heart attacks or major surgery is going to be affordable. Costs are diffused throughout all buyers for all who need them, but the only way to make sure costs are sufficiently low is to make everyone have them. Sorry to say, but individuals cannot be trusted sometimes to act on their own interest
And before you reply with the obvious, yes yes, socialism, yada yada, whatever. I’m comfortable with my choice and as you see, Americans are comfortable with that being legal. So save your objections of big brother-style communism, we’ve heard that before and its simply a lazy and inaccurate argument. In this case, government needs to force people to do this, its better for everyone that way
One reason companies may want to drop coverage now is that the employees can get affordable individual coverage, so that can be presented as a reasonable option to employees and the company can pay the fine and save money. That wasn’t true before Obamacare so offering coverage was mandatory to get good workers and not appear like a scrooge.
Do you really not get it? Some people have insurance (from their employers and elsewhere) and some people go bankrupt or don’t get surgery at all. Still others are fortunate enough to be rich. The point is that too many people fall into the “bankrupt or not get it” route. Forced insurance on everyone reduces that number
I’m glad to count on your support for UHC run by the government!
Right. Like the first words out of someone’s mouth wouldn’t have been “Socialism!”
No one does know what the actual cost will be. It could be better than forecast, it could be worse. If conservatives suddenly oppose any major initiatives without a good handle on the costs, I wish they had come to this conclusion before the Iraq War. But anyone in a company which is worried about this - or opposed to it because of the politics of the CEO - are going to say what he wants.
And the market in general does not seem to be very concerned.
The real effects don’t start until later this year or early next year. Plenty of time for the market to react, one way or the other. However, if you knew that the concerns were valid, why did you write what you wrote? How is it helpful to say that these CEOs are simply listening to right wing propaganda, when it IS still an unknown?? Or did you think I was just spouting the Fox News party line?
You remember that before ACA those with pre-existing conditions couldn’t buy individual insurance, right? People like me. Thanks for telling me to go bankrupt or die if I ever lost my job.
That’s why we need to decouple HC insurance from your job. You don’t lose your car insurance when you change jobs, do you?
OTOH, no one should be required to sell you “insurance” for an existing condition. You don’t buy a totaled car, get insurance on it, and then get to make a claim.
Do you really not get it? You can require everyone to have HC insurance, but not involve their employers. Most states do that with car insurance, and we don’'t require employers to provide car insurance to their workers.
As I said above, I would prefer that to Obamacare.
Make an argument, and if someone incorrectly calls it “socialism”, I’ve got your back. Until then, it’s a strawman.
What a load. Basically, if it really WAS the cost of doing business, then that would be a valid argument, but it’s not in most cases. WalMart can and does get all the workers they need without paying for such benefits. We are going to REQUIRE businesses to pay more than they need to in order to get the workers they need. We already do this, in fact, since we set a minimum wage that’s above what the actual labor market would bear for low end, unskilled labor…now we are going to require more. And business should just suck that up because we tell them too.