4 ms·

Companies shouldn’t be in the position of offering “benefits” to employees. No sane first world company ties health insurance to your employer. It's inexplicab

Companies shouldn’t be in the position of offering “benefits” to employees. No sane first world company ties health insurance to your employer. It's inexplicable to me that both employers and employees seem mostly fine with the current insanity. Do business owners enjoy having to be health insurance brokers? Do employees enjoy having their insurance provider change every few years and having very little choice in policies?

paulmd 6y ago
unfortunately any time anyone brings up medicare for all there's a huge pushback from half the country, so yes, people do mostly "like their current insurance" in practice. Or at least like it enough to not want to change the system. (and no, "just have everybody buy their own policy" is not a realistic answer, virtually every society addresses this on a public policy level because individual purchasers simply don't work well.) So, if you want your weird gig economy "independent contractor" nonsense, push for medicare for all, it's pretty much that simple. That's the only way having wage slaves be independent contractors isn't going to result in an immediate and massive drop in the quality and availability of health care. But oops lolbertarians don't like that either, they just want to be able to pay someone $0.50 per hour because "free markets are better".
- scarface74 6y ago
  I’m actually also against raising the minimum wage for the same reason. Businesses shouldn’t be responsible for providing a “livable wage”. A livable wage for my son staying at home isn’t the same as a single mom with three. The company should only be responsible for following the law and paying people what the market demands and paying taxes. Both the tax laws need to be changed to make sure that all companies pay “enough” and the Earned Income Tax Credit needs to be increased and easier to get throughout the year. Until the current administration, both Republicans and Democrats supported increasing the EITC.

paulmd 6y ago

unfortunately any time anyone brings up medicare for all there's a huge pushback from half the country, so yes, people do mostly "like their current insurance" in practice. Or at least like it enough to not want to change the system. (and no, "just have everybody buy their own policy" is not a realistic answer, virtually every society addresses this on a public policy level because individual purchasers simply don't work well.) So, if you want your weird gig economy "independent contractor" nonsense, push for medicare for all, it's pretty much that simple. That's the only way having wage slaves be independent contractors isn't going to result in an immediate and massive drop in the quality and availability of health care. But oops lolbertarians don't like that either, they just want to be able to pay someone $0.50 per hour because "free markets are better".

scarface74 6y ago
I’m actually also against raising the minimum wage for the same reason. Businesses shouldn’t be responsible for providing a “livable wage”. A livable wage for my son staying at home isn’t the same as a single mom with three. The company should only be responsible for following the law and paying people what the market demands and paying taxes. Both the tax laws need to be changed to make sure that all companies pay “enough” and the Earned Income Tax Credit needs to be increased and easier to get throughout the year. Until the current administration, both Republicans and Democrats supported increasing the EITC.