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> Average total employee compensation has significantly increased over the past 30 years once you factor in employer contributions to health insurance premiums.
by danaris 5y ago
> Average total employee compensation has significantly increased over the past 30 years once you factor in employer contributions to health insurance premiums.
Putting it that way is very misleading, though. The "total compensation" has increased only because health care costs have increased massively, and health insurance has increased to cover it. (Or vice versa; causality's tricky in a system like this, and there are definitely feedback loops.)
- lotsofpulp 5y agoWhich is a function of the amount of healthcare delivered greatly increasing (and/or potential to be a recipient of increased amount of healthcare in the event of an emergency).
- danaris 5y agoNo, it's really not. The costs of healthcare have increased massively in the last 2 decades or so without a concomitant increase in the quality of care.
- nradov 5y agoIt depends what you're looking at. For example new chemotherapy drugs have slightly extended average survival periods for certain cancers. But they're tremendously expensive, and that drives up insurance premiums for everyone. Are those drugs worth it? Ultimately the answer is subjective based on how we value human life. One could also argue that those drugs should be cheaper, but without the profit motive they likely wouldn't have been developed in the first place. And socialized funding of drug development hasn't worked out well either.
- mandmandam 5y agoDrug development is heavily, heavily subsidized by taxpayers. Ghouls have managed to privatize the profits, but every drug, technique and device ever developed is standing on the shoulders of giant public funding.
- greedo 5y agoThe primary chemo drug I was treated with in 2005 was over 50 years old. Yet it still cost me approximately $100k.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]