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What's the correlation between rate of forming new businesses and the rising costs of healthcare? Quit your job to start a business and not only do you have to

What's the correlation between rate of forming new businesses and the rising costs of healthcare? Quit your job to start a business and not only do you have to figure out your own insurance (at a vastly inflated rate), but you have to figure out how to play medical provider for anyone you hire. It's crazy that in the US, healthcare is so closely tied to employment. Single payer healthcare detached from the employer would vastly increase the opportunity for people to become entrepreneurs.

maxerickson 9y ago
With the ACA it isn't all that complicated, a small business doesn't have to offer health coverage, just pay enough to still have the job be interesting for people willing to buy a marketplace plan. I also wonder if actual premiums paid by end users in the individual marketplaces (that is, prices after subsidies) are really vastly inflated compared to group plans (it's just the group plans hide a lot of the cost from the insured).
tabtab 9y ago
I agree that healthcare and employment should be decoupled, but it would then increase individual taxes, which is poison to Republicans. All our significant competitor nations have nationalized healthcare/insurance (NHCI). Thus, the existence of NHCI alone doesn't give us a disadvantage over such nations. You could argue that HOW we do NHCI is no good, but that's a long and thorny side discussion.
prostoalex 9y ago
ACA's goal was to de-couple insurance from employment by having exchanges that anyone can enroll, and in theory you gain some negotiating power by participating in a plan that thousands of others have chosen. I think one problem is perception - when you don't see the health insurance premiums on your pay stub, you tend to think of them as $0, so going from $0 a month to $800 a month does seem outrageously expensive. The other problem is the tax treatment of health insurance premiums - they're deductible for the employer, but not deductible for an individual. One of those inconsistencies needs to change, most likely deductibility on the corporate front, as that somewhat contributes to the rise of total costs ("who cares if it's 5% more expensive this year, it's a write-off") and is a corporate subsidy - the money that could've gone to the benefit of all citizens is funneled to large corporations to help those nice fellows cover their costs of doing business.

maxerickson 9y ago

With the ACA it isn't all that complicated, a small business doesn't have to offer health coverage, just pay enough to still have the job be interesting for people willing to buy a marketplace plan. I also wonder if actual premiums paid by end users in the individual marketplaces (that is, prices after subsidies) are really vastly inflated compared to group plans (it's just the group plans hide a lot of the cost from the insured).

tabtab 9y ago

I agree that healthcare and employment should be decoupled, but it would then increase individual taxes, which is poison to Republicans. All our significant competitor nations have nationalized healthcare/insurance (NHCI). Thus, the existence of NHCI alone doesn't give us a disadvantage over such nations. You could argue that HOW we do NHCI is no good, but that's a long and thorny side discussion.

prostoalex 9y ago

ACA's goal was to de-couple insurance from employment by having exchanges that anyone can enroll, and in theory you gain some negotiating power by participating in a plan that thousands of others have chosen. I think one problem is perception - when you don't see the health insurance premiums on your pay stub, you tend to think of them as $0, so going from $0 a month to $800 a month does seem outrageously expensive. The other problem is the tax treatment of health insurance premiums - they're deductible for the employer, but not deductible for an individual. One of those inconsistencies needs to change, most likely deductibility on the corporate front, as that somewhat contributes to the rise of total costs ("who cares if it's 5% more expensive this year, it's a write-off") and is a corporate subsidy - the money that could've gone to the benefit of all citizens is funneled to large corporations to help those nice fellows cover their costs of doing business.