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To call it "insurance", you need to at least imagine how the accounting and risk management might work if it were like a car/homeowners/term-life insurance poli
by chmod600 5y ago
To call it "insurance", you need to at least imagine how the accounting and risk management might work if it were like a car/homeowners/term-life insurance policy.
First of all, do the payments alone support the program, or does it need cash infusions from taxes or money supply increases? How much would the premiums be if it was self-supporting?
Second, are those making higher premium payments (when you also account for the money infusions) at proportionally higher risk of payouts? What factors should be considered in the premium payment?
- charwalker 5y agoYou're thinking like a business not a government/essential service. Unemployment, like a lot of services, could be designed or mandated to break even or turn a profit but whether or not that would work or result in the system failing is another question. The capacity for a government to run essential services at a loss is a long standing component from even the US founding fathers. Hamilton wanted to adopt all debt from the colonies as a way to consolidate credit, unite the colonies financially, and put stock into the federal government with power to manage the nations debt vs individual states. Jefferson was against the policy but it (and other Hamilton drafted plans like a central bank) were approved through compromise.
- chmod600 5y agoThe parent compared it to insurance, not me. To call it insurance invites comaprison to traditional insurance. Sure, it can run at a loss. Maybe that's a public service. But I asked some questions that merit an answer if you want to call it insurance rather than, say, social security or something.