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I very much face-palmed when Obama pushed through the "full-time" bit. The counter-move was obvious and it happened just as I would have expected. Surely Obam

I very much face-palmed when Obama pushed through the "full-time" bit. The counter-move was obvious and it happened just as I would have expected. Surely Obama and his advisors would have seen that one coming, so I have forever been left wondering why that particular loophole was left open ... what was bought with that?

yhoneycomb 5y ago
When has any neoliberal policy actually benefited the poor?
- NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago
  All the time. Only it's the poor of other countries, not our own.
  - yhoneycomb 5y ago
    True
michaelmrose 5y ago
People can also buy health care plans directly through the exchange and use essentially a pre paid tax credit to directly pay part of their premiums. For example the monthly premium for a couple may be $1000 but the cost to the customer could be $300. At the income point just beyond medicaid eligibility this will virtually always be cheaper than what your employer offers.
- onion2k 5y ago
  29 hours a week is about 130 hours a month. Assuming a wage of $15 an hour, that's $1950. Spending $300 of that, about 15% of your pre-tax income, on health insurance is a decision few people would be happy about.
  - rafael09ed 5y ago
    No one is happy with the American Healthcare System unless you have America's exclusive socialized Healthcare, Tricare. You're also calculating it off of part time hours.
    - handrous 5y ago
      For foreigners or Americans without much exposure to the armed forces, and to save you a search: Tricare is what members of our military receive, active duty and (IIRC) those on full retirement. However, depending on how you define "socialized", lots of people are covered under several "socialized" programs by the US government, not just Tricare. Medicare (old or disabled people), Medicaid (the very poor), CHIP and things like that (poor kids). Also, if you're counting Tricare, probably any health insurance provided by any level of US government (federal, state, county, city) to government workers should count. In the end, the US government pays for healthcare (or, at least, much of it—US prices for healthcare are very high, and the way our insurance works means that insurance is just part of how the bills get paid, though a large part) for an high percentage of our population, one way or another.
    - panzagl 5y ago
      IF you've never heard anyone complain about Tricare, you don't know anyone on it.
      - yardie 5y ago
        Over 80% of my family is and was in the forces. They were all on Tricare, and complained. The ones that transitioned out now have to deal with private insurance and, in retrospect, Tricare was a teddy bear compared to what they are dealing with now.
    - onion2k 5y ago
      I'm calculating it on part time hours because that's what this thread is about - how employers keep people as part time in order to avoid giving them health care benefits.
  - deleted 5y ago
sokoloff 5y ago
What’s the practical alternative? Should I have to buy my house cleaner (3 hours every other week) health care?
- vlan0 5y ago
  What do you mean? Aren’t you technically paying a company for said service? Even if that company has one employee, your house cleaner?
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Aren’t you technically paying a company for said service? Even if that company has one employee, your house cleaner? Plenty of people are hired for work like that without forming a business entity, and sometimes under conditions that qualify as employment rather than contract work.
    - vlan0 5y ago
      You're not wrong. But how could this apply to OP's situation? Given a 40 hour work week, three hours every other week is a mere 3.75%. For the sake of conversation, let's consider the cleaner to be an employee and OP to be the employer. Even then, unless OP has 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees, there is no requirement for the employer to provide group health insurance, according to the ACA.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I’m not privy to her business arrangements, of course, but we write a check to her as an individual.
    - davidgould 5y ago
      Do you provide her with a form 1099 at the end of the year?
- jflesner 5y ago
  I like how baked into this question is how a practical single-payer solution is not practical due to purely political reasons. (Where your house cleaner's taxes pay into a large risk pool and their healthcare costs are based on their income)
sonofhans 5y ago
Obama tried. The Affordable Care Act barely passed. He had to make last-minute compromises with members of his own party to get it voted through at all. It’s not a loophole in the sense that it’s an unintentional exploit. Everyone involved knew full-well what the point of that provision was. If Congress voted in something more stringent, their corporate donors (e.g., Walmart) would have been pissed. That’s a deal-breaker for most Congress-critters.
lifeformed 5y ago
Probably one of the numerous compromises made just to get the bill to pass at all.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  The much more famous one probably being Liberman single-handedly killing the idea of the government directly providing insurance even if it is in fair competition, and then with Scott Brown briefly being elected in MA (which had Romney-care anyway and the ACA barely impacted most of us) everyone assumed it was a referendum on the ACA and was too scared to push any further. It was very distressing watching the news spin it all as being about the ACA when it was definitely much more about his opponent since everyone here already had something analogous to the ACA. But that's how spin works I guess, it's certainly even worse now.
refurb 5y ago
Because you can imagine the incentives if a company had to pay for health insurance for a part-time worker who works 10 hr per week? All those part time jobs would disappear since what kind of employer pay $5-10k per year in insurance premium for an employee who earns $600 per month before taxes? And you might say “great! Who cares about part time work?” and you’d be wrong, plenty of people don’t need or can do full time work.
- edmundsauto 5y ago
  Wouldn’t a sliding scale make the most sense?
  - refurb 5y ago
    Hard to make a sliding scale work when the scale is "the less you work, the less money you make, the more you pay for insurance."

yhoneycomb 5y ago

When has any neoliberal policy actually benefited the poor?

NtochkaNzvanova 5y ago
All the time. Only it's the poor of other countries, not our own.
- yhoneycomb 5y ago
  True

michaelmrose 5y ago

People can also buy health care plans directly through the exchange and use essentially a pre paid tax credit to directly pay part of their premiums. For example the monthly premium for a couple may be $1000 but the cost to the customer could be $300. At the income point just beyond medicaid eligibility this will virtually always be cheaper than what your employer offers.

onion2k 5y ago
29 hours a week is about 130 hours a month. Assuming a wage of $15 an hour, that's $1950. Spending $300 of that, about 15% of your pre-tax income, on health insurance is a decision few people would be happy about.
- rafael09ed 5y ago
  No one is happy with the American Healthcare System unless you have America's exclusive socialized Healthcare, Tricare. You're also calculating it off of part time hours.
  - handrous 5y ago
    For foreigners or Americans without much exposure to the armed forces, and to save you a search: Tricare is what members of our military receive, active duty and (IIRC) those on full retirement. However, depending on how you define "socialized", lots of people are covered under several "socialized" programs by the US government, not just Tricare. Medicare (old or disabled people), Medicaid (the very poor), CHIP and things like that (poor kids). Also, if you're counting Tricare, probably any health insurance provided by any level of US government (federal, state, county, city) to government workers should count. In the end, the US government pays for healthcare (or, at least, much of it—US prices for healthcare are very high, and the way our insurance works means that insurance is just part of how the bills get paid, though a large part) for an high percentage of our population, one way or another.
  - panzagl 5y ago
    IF you've never heard anyone complain about Tricare, you don't know anyone on it.
    - yardie 5y ago
      Over 80% of my family is and was in the forces. They were all on Tricare, and complained. The ones that transitioned out now have to deal with private insurance and, in retrospect, Tricare was a teddy bear compared to what they are dealing with now.
  - onion2k 5y ago
    I'm calculating it on part time hours because that's what this thread is about - how employers keep people as part time in order to avoid giving them health care benefits.
- deleted 5y ago

sokoloff 5y ago

What’s the practical alternative? Should I have to buy my house cleaner (3 hours every other week) health care?

vlan0 5y ago
What do you mean? Aren’t you technically paying a company for said service? Even if that company has one employee, your house cleaner?
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Aren’t you technically paying a company for said service? Even if that company has one employee, your house cleaner? Plenty of people are hired for work like that without forming a business entity, and sometimes under conditions that qualify as employment rather than contract work.
  - vlan0 5y ago
    You're not wrong. But how could this apply to OP's situation? Given a 40 hour work week, three hours every other week is a mere 3.75%. For the sake of conversation, let's consider the cleaner to be an employee and OP to be the employer. Even then, unless OP has 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees, there is no requirement for the employer to provide group health insurance, according to the ACA.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I’m not privy to her business arrangements, of course, but we write a check to her as an individual.
  - davidgould 5y ago
    Do you provide her with a form 1099 at the end of the year?
jflesner 5y ago
I like how baked into this question is how a practical single-payer solution is not practical due to purely political reasons. (Where your house cleaner's taxes pay into a large risk pool and their healthcare costs are based on their income)

sonofhans 5y ago

Obama tried. The Affordable Care Act barely passed. He had to make last-minute compromises with members of his own party to get it voted through at all. It’s not a loophole in the sense that it’s an unintentional exploit. Everyone involved knew full-well what the point of that provision was. If Congress voted in something more stringent, their corporate donors (e.g., Walmart) would have been pissed. That’s a deal-breaker for most Congress-critters.

lifeformed 5y ago

Probably one of the numerous compromises made just to get the bill to pass at all.

neltnerb 5y ago
The much more famous one probably being Liberman single-handedly killing the idea of the government directly providing insurance even if it is in fair competition, and then with Scott Brown briefly being elected in MA (which had Romney-care anyway and the ACA barely impacted most of us) everyone assumed it was a referendum on the ACA and was too scared to push any further. It was very distressing watching the news spin it all as being about the ACA when it was definitely much more about his opponent since everyone here already had something analogous to the ACA. But that's how spin works I guess, it's certainly even worse now.

refurb 5y ago

Because you can imagine the incentives if a company had to pay for health insurance for a part-time worker who works 10 hr per week? All those part time jobs would disappear since what kind of employer pay $5-10k per year in insurance premium for an employee who earns $600 per month before taxes? And you might say “great! Who cares about part time work?” and you’d be wrong, plenty of people don’t need or can do full time work.

edmundsauto 5y ago
Wouldn’t a sliding scale make the most sense?
- refurb 5y ago
  Hard to make a sliding scale work when the scale is "the less you work, the less money you make, the more you pay for insurance."