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It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window

It’s sad that the idea of people being able to get by and live a comfortable life without the benefits from a full time job is so far outside the Overton window that it’s not even mentioned in these conversations. That seems like such an obviously better outcome for everyone - what if we got rid of healthcare benefits and other types of favorable tax treatment that are tied to full time employment so that everyone is in the same boat? Then all contractors, including Uber and Lyft drivers could keep the freedom and flexibility of being contractors (which anecdotally, I have talked to a lot of drivers who really like this aspect of it), but also not struggle as much to get by? (Universal healthcare is one path towards this world but not necessarily the only one, I think even the current healthcare system we have would work a lot better if premiums weren’t paid pre-tax by employers and people had actual choice and paid for their care with real money).

sushisushisushi 7y ago
It's not really outside the Overton window. Universal healthcare has strong majority support right now. Employers and shareholders benefit significantly by reducing options for workers and by making it difficult for workers to change jobs; the source of the resistance is there, in the plain language of power, not in some imaginary spectrum of what's considered to be acceptable.
- twblalock 7y ago
  Most employers would love to be able to stop paying for their employees' health care.
- solidasparagus 7y ago
  Universal healthcare has decent (but not 'strong majority') support in the abstract [1]. In terms of concrete proposals (i.e. once you've answered the questions of what universal healthcare is and how you pay for it), there is not a single plan that is even somewhat popular. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-no-safe-options-on-health-care/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-no-safe-...
  - ihm 7y ago
    I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all-health-care https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-...
    - twblalock 7y ago
      > I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry. A lot of people like the idea of a single-payer system but they never assume they would be forced to give up their current private insurance. Tell people that their private insurance would go out of business or become restricted to very high net worth individuals, and then ask them how much they like Medicare for all. The polling numbers would drop like a rock. Everyone likes the idea of Medicare for all when it applies to other people but not to themselves.
      - ionised 7y ago
        > The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry. Perhaps they do undestand and simply don't care? Why should they? Insurance is a parasitic industry.
      - vidarh 7y ago
        Funny how none of this is the case in pretty much any single payer system - as far as I know Norway used to be the only democratic one where private insurance was outright unavailable, and that was because there used to be no way to legally provide it.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        > A lot of people like the idea of a single-payer system but they never assume they would be forced to give up their current private insurance. That's kind of the point of public healthcare. So that regular people would not be forced to have private insurance. > private insurance would go out of business I don't know. If my 30M country with public healthcare can have players offering many different policies of medical insurance, surely your 300M country could work it out too.
TheRealDunkirk 7y ago
1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.
- fooey 7y ago
  It's already legal in several states, but no insurance companies took them up on it. Trump additionally signed an executive order to setup a national way to do it, but it died off as a policy proposal because the insurance companies aren't interested http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insurance-purchases.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insu...
  - iamthirsty 7y ago
    Of course they aren’t interested—the default model is working for them right now. Take away the default model, and open pure competition, and the insurance companies will have to compete on that level, and things will relatively quickly get better.
    - fooey 7y ago
      You're acting like every insurance company isn't already a massive multi-state corporation. State Farm Texas competing with State Farm Kansas is surely going to solve all our problems.
      - zip1234 7y ago
        There is probably a serious amount of overhead for those companies caused by making divisions in 50 separate states.
    - prostoalex 7y ago
      The providers still hold the key to pricing. When your choice of hospitals or specialists is limited, you’re going to go with whatever insurance company they accept, or pay some exorbitant price. The problem is that most people don't pre-shop for insurance that way, and only find out that their local provider is out of network when it's urgent that they get help.
oliwarner 7y ago
Your outlook assumes benefits are a net-bad, because health insurance is an evil bloated mess, but I think these are two very separate issues. Yes, obviously ending the scam of US healthcare costs is a great goal, but that really has nothing to do with employment benefits other than it meaning more people are insured. That is an income, not a cause of the corruption in healthcare. Employment "benefits" extend considerably outside medical cover. Speaking internationally, they often cover minimum wages, parental leave, minimum holiday requirements, pensions, often some form of income protection for long term sickness, and very often a swathe of worker rights that protect an employee from crappy employment practices (YMMV locally). These are serious things you should not shrug off; things that make your society better. Making them optional "allows" contractors to undercut employees, but this is less a choice in practice and more a wholesale movement to a disposable workforce. Any industry with a low enough skill threshold is pushing existing employees into contractors. Great if you're a business, less if you're a single parent. You have no choice. You save no money. You just lose your benefits. So by all means push for better healthcare systems but it's a unicorn in this context. I think you're actually —and inadvertently, I'm sure— pushing for modern day slavery under the guise of "free will". That's just where unfettered capitalism goes. I say we protect more people by recognising that they're not the ants their employers see them as. Them having rights protects us all.
- oliwarner 7y ago
  I would reword this, but I stand by the premise. Healthcare is a red herring. Ignore it. These types of worker have no power. The supply of unskilled workers is endless and —without regulation— companies can drive conditions and remuneration lower and lower. Giving up benefits is just another cost saved for the company, not the employee. That's why I think it's important we do regulate employment, so that people aren't having their otherwise-deserved benefits stripped away under this happy-go-lucky "gig economy" label.
pbreit 7y ago
The way it works with drivers in full control of when and how they work makes employment completely inappropriate. Employer-subsidized health care is not free.
blub 7y ago
Nice big fat red herring. Health care as a discussion point in the contractor vs. employee topic is relevant for only one country on the planet. The important benefits of having a job as opposed to gigging can be summarized as "the employer should not have complete power over the employee". For Uber drivers this is exactly the case, that's why this type of work is socially poisonous.
- burlesona 7y ago
  The definition of a contractor is in fact the opposite. Employees have to obey the hours and other conditions set by the employer. However, a business is not allowed to set such terms for a contractor - in general the rule is you can tell a contractor what you want done and what you’ll pay but you can’t tell them how or when to do it. I think what the OP was getting at is perhaps US centric, but basically Uber would be a lot better gig if you could be an Uber driver and have good health coverage (because it was a social service). At that point the argument would only be about fair wages, which is an easier case to make.
  - maeln 7y ago
    Honestly, being a contractor in this situation do suck. Normally, especially in B2B, contractor have at least a bit of power to negotiate with their client. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much, but in the case of a Uber driver, you have no power over Uber. They want to terminate/not renew your contract because they didn't like you for some reason ? They can. With no extra fee to pay. So imagine if they find out you are part of a Union or participated in a Uber-strike. As a Uber driver, you have no negotiation power over them. You only power is to go see a competitor, which has the same problem and are not numerous anyway. Then, there is also the fact that as a "personal" contractor, if you get sick, you are fucked. You car has a problem ? Deal with it with your own money. You have no minimum salary, no paid vacation, no sick day, no protection of any kind. Whatever happen to you, Uber don't care, you are just one of their many contractor. The status of employee brings a lot of protection that worker all over the world had to fight for. This type of unipersonnal contractor just bring us back to early 1900 worker status, and we should never accept that.
  - 7y ago
akvadrako 7y ago
It's not just healthcare - if you want to give people the most freedom to engage in new business arrangements, we should have a UBI as a baseline. Then even if your part-time taxi gig doesn't work out or comes in less than minimum wage, you can afford to survive.
netcan 7y ago
I don't think those are outside the overton window. The healthcare point is and has been a major point of debate in US politics for years. Just because a article that tangentially related to it doesn't happen to mention it doesn't mean it can't be discussed.
Krasnol 7y ago
> which anecdotally, I have talked to a lot of drivers who really like this aspect of it Really? What is it exactly that they like about that?
oceanghost 7y ago
Thank you for this delightful new term-- Overton Window.

sushisushisushi 7y ago

It's not really outside the Overton window. Universal healthcare has strong majority support right now. Employers and shareholders benefit significantly by reducing options for workers and by making it difficult for workers to change jobs; the source of the resistance is there, in the plain language of power, not in some imaginary spectrum of what's considered to be acceptable.

twblalock 7y ago
Most employers would love to be able to stop paying for their employees' health care.
solidasparagus 7y ago
Universal healthcare has decent (but not 'strong majority') support in the abstract [1]. In terms of concrete proposals (i.e. once you've answered the questions of what universal healthcare is and how you pay for it), there is not a single plan that is even somewhat popular. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-no-safe-options-on-health-care/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/democrats-have-no-safe-...
- ihm 7y ago
  I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all[1]. [1] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-percent-of-americans-support-medicare-for-all-health-care https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/412545-70-...
  - twblalock 7y ago
    > I don't know if this is a comprehensive source. Here's a poll where 70% of the respondents supported Medicare for all The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry. A lot of people like the idea of a single-payer system but they never assume they would be forced to give up their current private insurance. Tell people that their private insurance would go out of business or become restricted to very high net worth individuals, and then ask them how much they like Medicare for all. The polling numbers would drop like a rock. Everyone likes the idea of Medicare for all when it applies to other people but not to themselves.
    - ionised 7y ago
      > The 70% don't understand that Medicare for all would kill off the private insurance industry. Perhaps they do undestand and simply don't care? Why should they? Insurance is a parasitic industry.
    - vidarh 7y ago
      Funny how none of this is the case in pretty much any single payer system - as far as I know Norway used to be the only democratic one where private insurance was outright unavailable, and that was because there used to be no way to legally provide it.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > A lot of people like the idea of a single-payer system but they never assume they would be forced to give up their current private insurance. That's kind of the point of public healthcare. So that regular people would not be forced to have private insurance. > private insurance would go out of business I don't know. If my 30M country with public healthcare can have players offering many different policies of medical insurance, surely your 300M country could work it out too.

TheRealDunkirk 7y ago

1. Deregulate the health insurance market so you can sell across state lines. 2. Employers start giving their employees the money they pay on their behalf. 3. People shop for the health insurance they want/need. In a year, every other advertisement on TV would be for health insurance, like it is with car insurance now.

fooey 7y ago
It's already legal in several states, but no insurance companies took them up on it. Trump additionally signed an executive order to setup a national way to do it, but it died off as a policy proposal because the insurance companies aren't interested http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insurance-purchases.aspx http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insu...
- iamthirsty 7y ago
  Of course they aren’t interested—the default model is working for them right now. Take away the default model, and open pure competition, and the insurance companies will have to compete on that level, and things will relatively quickly get better.
  - fooey 7y ago
    You're acting like every insurance company isn't already a massive multi-state corporation. State Farm Texas competing with State Farm Kansas is surely going to solve all our problems.
    - zip1234 7y ago
      There is probably a serious amount of overhead for those companies caused by making divisions in 50 separate states.
  - prostoalex 7y ago
    The providers still hold the key to pricing. When your choice of hospitals or specialists is limited, you’re going to go with whatever insurance company they accept, or pay some exorbitant price. The problem is that most people don't pre-shop for insurance that way, and only find out that their local provider is out of network when it's urgent that they get help.

oliwarner 7y ago

Your outlook assumes benefits are a net-bad, because health insurance is an evil bloated mess, but I think these are two very separate issues. Yes, obviously ending the scam of US healthcare costs is a great goal, but that really has nothing to do with employment benefits other than it meaning more people are insured. That is an income, not a cause of the corruption in healthcare. Employment "benefits" extend considerably outside medical cover. Speaking internationally, they often cover minimum wages, parental leave, minimum holiday requirements, pensions, often some form of income protection for long term sickness, and very often a swathe of worker rights that protect an employee from crappy employment practices (YMMV locally). These are serious things you should not shrug off; things that make your society better. Making them optional "allows" contractors to undercut employees, but this is less a choice in practice and more a wholesale movement to a disposable workforce. Any industry with a low enough skill threshold is pushing existing employees into contractors. Great if you're a business, less if you're a single parent. You have no choice. You save no money. You just lose your benefits. So by all means push for better healthcare systems but it's a unicorn in this context. I think you're actually —and inadvertently, I'm sure— pushing for modern day slavery under the guise of "free will". That's just where unfettered capitalism goes. I say we protect more people by recognising that they're not the ants their employers see them as. Them having rights protects us all.

oliwarner 7y ago
I would reword this, but I stand by the premise. Healthcare is a red herring. Ignore it. These types of worker have no power. The supply of unskilled workers is endless and —without regulation— companies can drive conditions and remuneration lower and lower. Giving up benefits is just another cost saved for the company, not the employee. That's why I think it's important we do regulate employment, so that people aren't having their otherwise-deserved benefits stripped away under this happy-go-lucky "gig economy" label.

pbreit 7y ago

The way it works with drivers in full control of when and how they work makes employment completely inappropriate. Employer-subsidized health care is not free.

blub 7y ago

Nice big fat red herring. Health care as a discussion point in the contractor vs. employee topic is relevant for only one country on the planet. The important benefits of having a job as opposed to gigging can be summarized as "the employer should not have complete power over the employee". For Uber drivers this is exactly the case, that's why this type of work is socially poisonous.

burlesona 7y ago
The definition of a contractor is in fact the opposite. Employees have to obey the hours and other conditions set by the employer. However, a business is not allowed to set such terms for a contractor - in general the rule is you can tell a contractor what you want done and what you’ll pay but you can’t tell them how or when to do it. I think what the OP was getting at is perhaps US centric, but basically Uber would be a lot better gig if you could be an Uber driver and have good health coverage (because it was a social service). At that point the argument would only be about fair wages, which is an easier case to make.
- maeln 7y ago
  Honestly, being a contractor in this situation do suck. Normally, especially in B2B, contractor have at least a bit of power to negotiate with their client. Sometimes a lot, sometimes not so much, but in the case of a Uber driver, you have no power over Uber. They want to terminate/not renew your contract because they didn't like you for some reason ? They can. With no extra fee to pay. So imagine if they find out you are part of a Union or participated in a Uber-strike. As a Uber driver, you have no negotiation power over them. You only power is to go see a competitor, which has the same problem and are not numerous anyway. Then, there is also the fact that as a "personal" contractor, if you get sick, you are fucked. You car has a problem ? Deal with it with your own money. You have no minimum salary, no paid vacation, no sick day, no protection of any kind. Whatever happen to you, Uber don't care, you are just one of their many contractor. The status of employee brings a lot of protection that worker all over the world had to fight for. This type of unipersonnal contractor just bring us back to early 1900 worker status, and we should never accept that.
- 7y ago

akvadrako 7y ago

It's not just healthcare - if you want to give people the most freedom to engage in new business arrangements, we should have a UBI as a baseline. Then even if your part-time taxi gig doesn't work out or comes in less than minimum wage, you can afford to survive.

netcan 7y ago

I don't think those are outside the overton window. The healthcare point is and has been a major point of debate in US politics for years. Just because a article that tangentially related to it doesn't happen to mention it doesn't mean it can't be discussed.

Krasnol 7y ago

> which anecdotally, I have talked to a lot of drivers who really like this aspect of it Really? What is it exactly that they like about that?

oceanghost 7y ago

Thank you for this delightful new term-- Overton Window.