5 ms·

You're correct but you're missing one large expense: Health/Wellness (at least, in the US, where it's partially paid for by one's employer). I'm assuming the O

by mdip 10y ago

You're correct but you're missing one large expense: Health/Wellness (at least, in the US, where it's partially paid for by one's employer). I'm assuming the OP was expecting to keep this benefit since it's a critical thing for most people. The company could choose to pay for less of a share (and most companies reduce or eliminate this benefit for part-timers) but assuming it's left alone, it would not be reduced any with a reduction in the cost of salary. You mentioned training time and management, but there's also "employee support costs" that increase by employee count regardless of salary such as HR and other support staff, state/local/federal compliance requirements that are based on the total number of people employed rather than salary (though many of these are limited to full-time staff) and others that I can't speak to since it's not my area of expertise, but his point is still valid in those areas. On PTO - you're right in that I haven't encountered an employee that doesn't reduce the total allotment of PTO for part-timers. But even if they didn't, this would go down precisely with salary since it's paid as a full day's work not worked and that day would now be 25% cheaper.

Mithaldu 10y ago
In a sane system the health insurance costs scale with wages. Do the US ones not do that?
- maerF0x0 10y ago
  Why would that be a sane system? IMO a sane system is one where the paid cost scales with the real costs of the health care, no? Ones health care costs arent going to be cut in half if hours are cut in half. Still need just as many annual checkups, may still have the same diabetes etc.
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    No, health care is implicitly a system of shared costs to benefit all of society by limiting the amount of ill people present as much as possible, thus increasing the health of everyone else by reducing contacts with ill people. In such a system, costs are of course taken on by every single participant according to their means. Read up on german health insurance for example.
    - waqf 10y ago
      I agree that that is a sane system, but it's not correct to call the payment an "insurance cost" if it is calculated according to means, not according to expected future treatment costs. That's what was causing the confusion and dissent. (Also … don't ask what US health insurance costs are based on. It's too horrible to contemplate. They're based on, among other things, your employer's negotiating power vis-à-vis the health insurance industry.)
      - Mithaldu 10y ago
        Fair enough. I spoke a little simply.
    - usrusr 10y ago
      Forgive my sarcasm: > Read up on german health insurance for example. Which one, the one where middle income employees pay healthcare for all the poor and incapable, or the one where the wealthy and some happy civil servants don't? The American system is terrible, but I really don't think that we are qualified to point fingers.
      - Mithaldu 10y ago
        You failed to formulate a coherent disagreement. Please address the actual points of my post and speak clearly.
      - douche 10y ago
        >the one where middle income employees pay healthcare for all the poor and incapable That about sums up the US system... I don't particularly like the idea of the federal government getting their grubby fingers into more than they are constitutionally mandated to, but a single-payer system could cut out the byzantine insurance coding and billing bureaucracy that causes medical costs to be completely arbitrary and opaque.
  - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    It is a sane system because everyone is paying into it, and you can do things on a larger scale to help more people. With health care being disconnected from the job, it doesn't tie people to an employer they hate and changing jobs is less of a risk. There are pluses and minuses, of course. They still should have checkups, but not everyone needs them annually. Still might have diabetes, but with less stress and actually having time to cook proper meals, the diabetes might be better controlled and have cost savings in the long term (fewer complications) - and possibly short term if they have type 2 and go from insulin to pills. Sweden has been testing out 6 hour days - with nurses, they find overall absenteeism has dropped and folks are happier. Large scale, this would probably mean that folks are sick less often. Might not be cut by 25%, but improvement is still improvement.
- aplummer 10y ago
  In a sane system healthcare is provided to everyone free and has nothing to do with employment status ;)
  - Piskvorrr 10y ago
    And a pony ;)
  - Mithaldu 10y ago
    That is of course implicit. No wages, no costs. The funding for health care still needs to come from somewhere, this optimally being a tax on income.
    - aplummer 10y ago
      Yeah I got straw-manned pretty hard (and took the bait), like I was advocating a fully volunteer health network or money on trees situation...
  - zaroth 10y ago
    There's no such thing. It's just deluding yourself and a bit dishonest to say "free" in this context, please try to say what you mean. Is it actually, 'In a sane system healthcare is billed to everyone as a percentage tax on their income capped at some dollar amount'. Or perhaps you think it should be an uncapped percentage of income? I expect there is no country on Earth where the cost of healthcare literally has nothing to do with employment status, in-so-much as single-payer healthcare is always funded at least partially by income taxes.
    - soundwave106 10y ago
      One advantage most other countries have, with the government being the plan manager, is that the pool of taxes they can utilize for funding is larger. Income taxes partially fund health care, yes, but so does VAT. But at any rate, if you ignore the "free" point of the original poster, that post was quite correct. America leans heavily on corporations to perform the management of health care, and I don't see that as particularly "sane" to be honest. To me, such is an unnecessary competitive advantage to large corporations that can better manage the bureaucracy and expense. Small business owners often cannot afford the time and expense to offer this (understandably, to be honest). Consequently, employees that are self-employed or working for small companies may have to forgo health insurance. It is very possible that this leads to some talented employees resisting leaving a corporation purely for health insurance reasons, a phenomenon called "job lock" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118427?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118427?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- clarkmoody 10y ago
  > In a sane system ... US No. Almost nothing about the US healthcare system is sane, by any interpretation of the word.
- subhobroto 10y ago
  In a sane system the health insurance pays for only catastrophic scenarios and has nothign to do with employment. Providers post prices publicly and compete on said prices while maintaining customer satisfaction. The US does not do that. We have 1000s of reviews for restaurants and how the server behaved but no site where you can type a zip code and a procedure and get a list of providers and their prices and reviews.

by mdip 10y ago

Mithaldu 10y ago

In a sane system the health insurance costs scale with wages. Do the US ones not do that?

maerF0x0 10y ago
Why would that be a sane system? IMO a sane system is one where the paid cost scales with the real costs of the health care, no? Ones health care costs arent going to be cut in half if hours are cut in half. Still need just as many annual checkups, may still have the same diabetes etc.
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  No, health care is implicitly a system of shared costs to benefit all of society by limiting the amount of ill people present as much as possible, thus increasing the health of everyone else by reducing contacts with ill people. In such a system, costs are of course taken on by every single participant according to their means. Read up on german health insurance for example.
  - waqf 10y ago
    I agree that that is a sane system, but it's not correct to call the payment an "insurance cost" if it is calculated according to means, not according to expected future treatment costs. That's what was causing the confusion and dissent. (Also … don't ask what US health insurance costs are based on. It's too horrible to contemplate. They're based on, among other things, your employer's negotiating power vis-à-vis the health insurance industry.)
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      Fair enough. I spoke a little simply.
  - usrusr 10y ago
    Forgive my sarcasm: > Read up on german health insurance for example. Which one, the one where middle income employees pay healthcare for all the poor and incapable, or the one where the wealthy and some happy civil servants don't? The American system is terrible, but I really don't think that we are qualified to point fingers.
    - Mithaldu 10y ago
      You failed to formulate a coherent disagreement. Please address the actual points of my post and speak clearly.
    - douche 10y ago
      >the one where middle income employees pay healthcare for all the poor and incapable That about sums up the US system... I don't particularly like the idea of the federal government getting their grubby fingers into more than they are constitutionally mandated to, but a single-payer system could cut out the byzantine insurance coding and billing bureaucracy that causes medical costs to be completely arbitrary and opaque.
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  It is a sane system because everyone is paying into it, and you can do things on a larger scale to help more people. With health care being disconnected from the job, it doesn't tie people to an employer they hate and changing jobs is less of a risk. There are pluses and minuses, of course. They still should have checkups, but not everyone needs them annually. Still might have diabetes, but with less stress and actually having time to cook proper meals, the diabetes might be better controlled and have cost savings in the long term (fewer complications) - and possibly short term if they have type 2 and go from insulin to pills. Sweden has been testing out 6 hour days - with nurses, they find overall absenteeism has dropped and folks are happier. Large scale, this would probably mean that folks are sick less often. Might not be cut by 25%, but improvement is still improvement.
aplummer 10y ago
In a sane system healthcare is provided to everyone free and has nothing to do with employment status ;)
- Piskvorrr 10y ago
  And a pony ;)
- Mithaldu 10y ago
  That is of course implicit. No wages, no costs. The funding for health care still needs to come from somewhere, this optimally being a tax on income.
  - aplummer 10y ago
    Yeah I got straw-manned pretty hard (and took the bait), like I was advocating a fully volunteer health network or money on trees situation...
- zaroth 10y ago
  There's no such thing. It's just deluding yourself and a bit dishonest to say "free" in this context, please try to say what you mean. Is it actually, 'In a sane system healthcare is billed to everyone as a percentage tax on their income capped at some dollar amount'. Or perhaps you think it should be an uncapped percentage of income? I expect there is no country on Earth where the cost of healthcare literally has nothing to do with employment status, in-so-much as single-payer healthcare is always funded at least partially by income taxes.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    One advantage most other countries have, with the government being the plan manager, is that the pool of taxes they can utilize for funding is larger. Income taxes partially fund health care, yes, but so does VAT. But at any rate, if you ignore the "free" point of the original poster, that post was quite correct. America leans heavily on corporations to perform the management of health care, and I don't see that as particularly "sane" to be honest. To me, such is an unnecessary competitive advantage to large corporations that can better manage the bureaucracy and expense. Small business owners often cannot afford the time and expense to offer this (understandably, to be honest). Consequently, employees that are self-employed or working for small companies may have to forgo health insurance. It is very possible that this leads to some talented employees resisting leaving a corporation purely for health insurance reasons, a phenomenon called "job lock" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118427?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents https://www.jstor.org/stable/2118427?seq=1#page_scan_tab_con...).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
clarkmoody 10y ago
> In a sane system ... US No. Almost nothing about the US healthcare system is sane, by any interpretation of the word.
subhobroto 10y ago
In a sane system the health insurance pays for only catastrophic scenarios and has nothign to do with employment. Providers post prices publicly and compete on said prices while maintaining customer satisfaction. The US does not do that. We have 1000s of reviews for restaurants and how the server behaved but no site where you can type a zip code and a procedure and get a list of providers and their prices and reviews.