6 ms·

Not that I think it'll pass but would that make healthcare eligibility at 32 hours too? Seems like this would just make places cut hours to avoid it. I'd reall

• t-writescode 5y ago
  This definitely isn't me. While I want to be able to choose my own insurance because I think I could select a better one, my HSA with my company costs me either $0 or like $2 a month. The PPO is like $100 / month. If I got my own, personal insurance, it would easily be $600/mo. Now, I can afford this; but people who make less than a software engineer absolutely could not; and, they're not going to be getting an 8k / year raise (taxes) to compensate for that. It'd be nice (edit: if) they were; but, they won't.
  • Glyptodon 5y ago
    It goes without saying that severing the employer insurance relationship should come with premiums being pushed back into salaries. What exactly that should look like is a pretty open-ended question, though.
    • texasbigdata 5y ago
      Correct. You'll have a employer and employee deduction per period to Blue Cross or your insurer of choice. Same for dental, workers comp, etc. OP has an interesting point, but at the societal level it's not fair to do comparisons with an unpriced externality in one of the alternatives.
      • syshum 5y ago
        More and more companies are direct insurance, meaning even if they use an "insurance company" to manage the group, that is just for the administration of the group. The companies are paying the medical costs of the employee directly.
    • ipaddr 5y ago
      And funnelled back into taxes which would pay for that $600 cost directly.
    • dillondoyle 5y ago
      Or why not tackle the bigger problem at the same time and move towards a more nationalized system.
      • syshum 5y ago
        Because not everyone agree's that a nationalized system is the best solution to the bigger problem, hell we probably do not even agree what the bigger problem is i.e I am sure you believe the market is the problem, where I believe government is the problem, so since I believe government is the problem i certainly do not believe giving more control to the same government that created the problem is the solution to the problem
        • runarberg 5y ago
          A role of a politician is not to ensure there is a complete public consensus before enacting a policy. It is to gather what makes a policy good, persuade the public that it is indeed a good policy, and then finally push through the legislative assembly with a general support from the public. A politician that never acts unless there is a complete consensus is a pretty lousy politician and should probably be voted out of office.
          • syshum 5y ago
            Pretty sure none of that is relevant to my comment, Politicians have been trying to persuade the public to allow the government to take over health care since the 1990's, and have enacted a number of policies to worsen the health market making it harder and harder to operate, to extort the public in to accepting the government as the solution to the problem they have been slowly creating for the last 40+ years. (or really since WWII if you want to count creating the link between employment and insurance by enacting wage controls during the war)
        • markoman 5y ago
          So, the solution is to live with employer-controlled and -connected healthcare and watch them as they cut the coverage and hike the costs year after year. This might be fine when your a SWE in your 20's and not on any meds but for those on BP or diabetic medications, this isn't much of a solution. Government didn't create this problem because it didn't mandate that employee healthcare be a benefit from employers. That was simply "laissez-faire capitalism", i.e., the belief that the market is all-knowing and will eventually guide us to an efficient and effective equilibrium. Except that really only happens in perfect markets and they don't exist outside of textbooks.
  • irrational 5y ago
    Same here. The insurance through my Fortune 500 company is incredibly good and cheap. It would be so expensive if I tried to buy a similar level of insurance at market rates.
    • rootusrootus 5y ago
      The insurance from my Fortune 500 company is very cheap, and if you like the insurance options they have then it is very good. But if you'd prefer something else, there is no option at all. I would like to be able to keep my preferred doctor when I switch jobs.
  • briffle 5y ago
    There is no reason your employer can't offer you the insurance, or put the same amount of money in a tax excempt account for your to purchase your own insurance from. The only reason why is employers love you to be 'tied' to them for the benefits.
    • t-writescode 5y ago
      Outstanding. Now, given the way the world is, at this second, how do you see this evolution actually going?
  • whakim 5y ago
    Don't companies get to deduct their contributions to health care plans from their payroll taxes, which means the government is effectively subsidizing employer coverage (as opposed to individual coverage)?
  • unethical_ban 5y ago
    Right, so legislate that companies with health insurance plans release the amount of money per employee they're paying to subsidize the plan, and force them to increase wages by no less than that amount.
• imglorp 5y ago
  Yet another reason to separate employment from insurance.
• rectang 5y ago
  The Affordable Care Act defined "full-time" as anyone working 30 hours per week or 130 hours per month. https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifying-full-time-employees https://www.irs.gov/affordable-care-act/employers/identifyin...
  • crocodiletears 5y ago
    Ime, this threw a whole bunch of entry level laborers under the bus. When I entered the workforce, you could work up to 29 hours (typically flex scheduling) at an entry level position in my region. If you wanted any more, you either worked multiple jobs - both of which likely changed your schedule week-week, or worked for an employer who knew they could do whatever they wanted with you, because what they were offering was a rarity in the environment.
    • resoluteteeth 5y ago
      This is sort of a damned if you do damned if you don't type situation for legislators, because other people are getting screwed over if they are kept right under what counts as full time employment so they don't get benefits. In some cases this is the only reason people need to work multiple jobs in the first place. The only way to really fix it is to make health care not connected to employers in the first place so your hours/number of employers don't matter.
      • arcticbull 5y ago
        Indeed, this is a solved problem. Everyone gets healthcare, it comes out of their taxes. 40% of Americans are already covered by socialized medicine, between Medicare, Medicaid and the VA. We're really only looking to expand that from 40% to 100%. It's not nearly the jump into the chasm of socialism the right is painting it as. If we can't bring the Manchins of the world onboard, at the very least require all employees, regardless of hours worked, to receive healthcare and if you work for multiple employers, then they can sort out amongst themselves.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
• BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  I wish that the Affordable Care Act banned employer-sponsored group policies. The health insurance remains bifurcated between the individual exchanges and people covered under their employer's plan.
  • pm90 5y ago
    This always runs into strong resistance by the section of labor force who do get good health insurance coverage by their employers as theyre afraid to lose it.
    • kodah 5y ago
      Which sort of doesn't make sense. The companies that provide insurance would likely continue to provide supplemental policies on top of whatever the government sponsored healthcare would be. The only way that there'd be a difference between companies that provided health insurance vs companies that provide supplemental policies: - The cost of government provided healthcare does not match dollar for dollar or below private health insurance - There is no value add from a supplemental policy
  • lotsofpulp 5y ago
    That was the goal (if a taxpayer funded healthcare model was not possible), but even just getting rid of employers and dumping everyone on healthcare.gov was not politically possible. Big and well funded employers love the competitive advantage of having lower per employee administrative costs over smaller employers. This was sort of fixed at the end of 2016 by allowing all employers to reimburse employees for employee purchased health insurance with pre tax income. Employers also love obfuscating labor prices so it makes it more difficult for employees to compare wages from employer to employer (although paystubs and box 12 code dd of w-2 does show you the price of the health insurance you are getting, but you usually do not have access to this information when deciding on a job offer).