4 ms·

A possible solution is to have no hard cutoff. Work 5 hours a week? Get 5/40ths of full time benefits. Or something like that. Obviously it's tricky with ben

A possible solution is to have no hard cutoff. Work 5 hours a week? Get 5/40ths of full time benefits. Or something like that. Obviously it's tricky with benefits that are all or nothing, though some of that could be adjusted - for health insurance, this could mean Uber offers to pay a variable portion of the cost based on how much you worked in the last ~3 months. With anything on a strictly proportional scale, there's no obvious financial incentive to keep workers from working the number of hours they want. Though I agree healthcare is the one thing that would probably be better off not tied to employment.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Even better, just stop having non-cash benefits for employees whatsoever, which would allow them to command higher compensation in cash and then buy whatever "benefits" they want or with it or not. The entire concept of "benefits" came out of regulatory arbitrage to avoid 20th century wage controls or because of differential tax treatment. It's an anachronism that should cease to exist.
- TylerE 6y ago
  That is very dangerous. People are, in the large, morons. That goes double when it comes to money and health.
  - invalidOrTaken 6y ago
    They stop being morons pretty quick after having been bitten though. Remember: we are in this situation right now with freelancers, gig workers, etc. If you're worried about creating an army of uninsured, they already exist.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > People are, in the large, morons. They're not, and constantly assuming they are is incredibly patronizing. And if they are, aren't the people deciding all of these things for everybody also "people"? Clearly then we shouldn't rely on their decisions because people are morons. > That goes double when it comes to money and health. So give a tax credit to individuals for having a minimum amount of high deductible health insurance but structure it as a "tax" for not doing so, which triggers loss aversion and causes people to buy it to avoid the "tax". It changes nothing for the people who were already doing the math and it catches the "morons" you were worried about.
  - iguy 6y ago
    > That is very dangerous. Not having employers provide health insurance doesn't necessarily mean a free-for-all. For example (IIRC) the Swiss system unbundles this, but it's obligatory to buy insurance, so that you are not free to be selfish "moron" (i.e. to pay nothing until you get sick, and then your neighbors pay so as not to have people dying in the gutter).
- zrail 6y ago
  I mostly agree but there are a lot of caveats here. Health insurance is the biggest one, of course. ACA is better than nothing but it's not great. The other that comes to mind is life insurance. Some people can't buy individual life insurance at any price due to preexisting conditions but they can get a group policy from their employer (up to certain limits) with no questions asked.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > I mostly agree but there are a lot of caveats here. Health insurance is the biggest one, of course. ACA is better than nothing but it's not great. It would be better than employer-provided insurance, especially if people weren't being discouraged to buy high deductible plans, because it would cause patients to be price-sensitive for routine non-emergency care, which would bring down overall costs in a major way. (Which is why the ACA doesn't do that -- the industry doesn't want lower costs, because that's their revenue.) > Some people can't buy individual life insurance at any price due to preexisting conditions but they can get a group policy from their employer (up to certain limits) with no questions asked. I'm not sure why it's supposed to be a good thing that people can force other people to subsidize their life insurance after the risk of early payout is already known. It's like letting someone's family buy life insurance after they've already died. That's not insurance, it's charity. Insurance is what you get if you bought it before the risk came to light.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - dgoldstein0 6y ago
      I'm having a hard time parsing that bit about health insurance - "it would be better" - what is "it"? - "it would cause patients" -again, what is"it" referencing?
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        Getting rid of employer-provided insurance and just giving people the money so they can buy health insurance themselves.
- mFixman 6y ago
  Congratulations, you just killed collective bargaining. Now workers have no effective way to demand changes to their workplaces.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

Even better, just stop having non-cash benefits for employees whatsoever, which would allow them to command higher compensation in cash and then buy whatever "benefits" they want or with it or not. The entire concept of "benefits" came out of regulatory arbitrage to avoid 20th century wage controls or because of differential tax treatment. It's an anachronism that should cease to exist.

TylerE 6y ago
That is very dangerous. People are, in the large, morons. That goes double when it comes to money and health.
- invalidOrTaken 6y ago
  They stop being morons pretty quick after having been bitten though. Remember: we are in this situation right now with freelancers, gig workers, etc. If you're worried about creating an army of uninsured, they already exist.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > People are, in the large, morons. They're not, and constantly assuming they are is incredibly patronizing. And if they are, aren't the people deciding all of these things for everybody also "people"? Clearly then we shouldn't rely on their decisions because people are morons. > That goes double when it comes to money and health. So give a tax credit to individuals for having a minimum amount of high deductible health insurance but structure it as a "tax" for not doing so, which triggers loss aversion and causes people to buy it to avoid the "tax". It changes nothing for the people who were already doing the math and it catches the "morons" you were worried about.
- iguy 6y ago
  > That is very dangerous. Not having employers provide health insurance doesn't necessarily mean a free-for-all. For example (IIRC) the Swiss system unbundles this, but it's obligatory to buy insurance, so that you are not free to be selfish "moron" (i.e. to pay nothing until you get sick, and then your neighbors pay so as not to have people dying in the gutter).
zrail 6y ago
I mostly agree but there are a lot of caveats here. Health insurance is the biggest one, of course. ACA is better than nothing but it's not great. The other that comes to mind is life insurance. Some people can't buy individual life insurance at any price due to preexisting conditions but they can get a group policy from their employer (up to certain limits) with no questions asked.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > I mostly agree but there are a lot of caveats here. Health insurance is the biggest one, of course. ACA is better than nothing but it's not great. It would be better than employer-provided insurance, especially if people weren't being discouraged to buy high deductible plans, because it would cause patients to be price-sensitive for routine non-emergency care, which would bring down overall costs in a major way. (Which is why the ACA doesn't do that -- the industry doesn't want lower costs, because that's their revenue.) > Some people can't buy individual life insurance at any price due to preexisting conditions but they can get a group policy from their employer (up to certain limits) with no questions asked. I'm not sure why it's supposed to be a good thing that people can force other people to subsidize their life insurance after the risk of early payout is already known. It's like letting someone's family buy life insurance after they've already died. That's not insurance, it's charity. Insurance is what you get if you bought it before the risk came to light.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dgoldstein0 6y ago
    I'm having a hard time parsing that bit about health insurance - "it would be better" - what is "it"? - "it would cause patients" -again, what is"it" referencing?
    - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
      Getting rid of employer-provided insurance and just giving people the money so they can buy health insurance themselves.
mFixman 6y ago
Congratulations, you just killed collective bargaining. Now workers have no effective way to demand changes to their workplaces.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]