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Will cheaper health insurance raise wages? The evidence is thin
- terravion 11y agoSo, basically, because we've never seen premium spending go down we don't have examples of how premium reductions affect total compensation. Despite the implicit suggestion of the title, reducing premiums seems like something we should try as a society.
- ars 11y agoAnd the best way to reduce premiums is by encouraging more people to get Cadillac policies. Which is the opposite of what they are doing. Those Cadillac policies subsidize all the other premiums both directly at the insurer, and indirectly at the hospital which can then afford to receive below market rates for everyone else. For example when the Check 21 Act passed banks responded by eliminating free checking accounts, making things worse for exactly those people the law was supposed to help.
- reycharles 11y ago> And the best way to reduce premiums is by encouraging more people to get Cadillac policies. What do you base that on?
- ars 11y ago> What do you base that on? I explained that in the rest of my post. Did you have a specific question about it?
- harryh 11y agoRight now salary is taxed but health insurance is not. Given that it seems pretty obvious that employees are getting more health insurance and less salary than they would prefer. Fixing this seems like a pretty good idea.
- bnolsen 11y agoif you work for a large company it isn't taxed. if you work for a small company that doesn't provide insurance it is taxed. lowering insurance and payroll taxes won't increase wages but it will help keep jobs in the US since it will lower cost of employment.
- KaiserPro 11y agothe basic take away from all of this: economics is not a science.