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> My cost for health insurance on the group plan? $560/mo. Is that the full cost, or is your employer also paying something?
by badfrog 8y ago
> My cost for health insurance on the group plan? $560/mo.
Is that the full cost, or is your employer also paying something?
- ams6110 8y agoThat's his cost. The employer is probably paying twice that much more behind the scenes. Money they could otherwise be paying him.
- StudentStuff 8y agoMoney spent on healthcare for employees is untaxed, effectively a 30% bonus.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- ryanwaggoner 8y agoPremiums are also untaxed if you’re self employed.
- jeffrey_garand 8y agoThis isn't standard worldwide. In Canada, health, dental, and other benefits are considered taxable.
- Scoundreller 8y agoNot when health/dental premiums are paid by the employer.
- Freak_NL 8y agoEmployer negotiated insurances tend to cost less than individually bought ones, because the employer gets a group discount. The larger the group, the bigger the collective discount. Just like toilet paper, insurances are cheaper when bought in bulk. Imagine the awesome coverage you'd get as a Lyft or Uber driver if you were actually employed by them.
- tialaramex 8y agoMore so than with toilet paper. Suppose two people, Alice and Bob, are both shopping for medical insurance in a country like the US where there is no safety net. Alice is basically healthy, except she seems to always catch everything. She got flu twice last winter, crazy! Bob is proud to have never taken a day off in eighteen years. You show them the same price, Bob winces, and decides he'll risk it without insurance but Alice, conscious that she always seems to catch everything, pays anyway. Six years later Alice gets really sick, turns out her immune system was shot but she didn't know it. Insurance company loses money on her. She was a bad investment. Bob's still fine, touch wood. Group insurance is cheaper because you're insuring Bob, who wouldn't have bothered except he's part of the group, as well as Alice, who it turns out was a high risk. This is one reason why countries with universal healthcare don't bankrupt themselves the way typical anti-healthcare models suggest they should. A group with everybody in it is relatively cheap _overall_ to cover because it has loads of healthy people in it, and they don't need much healthcare, not just all the sick people who have no choice but to get into any system they can to avoid dying. "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately". Maybe Franklin never said that, if he didn't he should have.