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> employers controlling every aspect of their lives Agreed. The worst one – "they cut off my health insurance same day" – is pretty unique to the USA in partic

> employers controlling every aspect of their lives Agreed. The worst one – "they cut off my health insurance same day" – is pretty unique to the USA in particular. I wonder what it would take for the citizens of USA to get rid of the concept of employer-based health insurance, and replacing it with socialised healthcare.

solardev 3y ago
Half the country's been trying for decades, the other half's more interested in culture wars.
- gruez 3y ago
  >the other half's more interested in culture wars. Are they? Looking at the polls[1], it's not really clear either way. For instance much more republicans think that "the state of moral values" is a "big problem", which seems to suggest they're "more interested in culture wars", but at the same time for "racism" the numbers are flipped. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-health-costs-partisan-cooperation-among-the-nations-top-problems/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-he...
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - truculent 3y ago
    Creating an equivalence between “moral values” and racism is the goal of “culture war” framing. Interesting to see it working, I suppose
    - gruez 3y ago
      Do you have a justification for that claim that isn't along the lines of "our cause is just and is worth fighting for/debating. Their cause is unjust and is just 'culture war' issues meant to distract"?
      - hasmolo 3y ago
        i suppose the point being made here is that we are currently in a place of racism, and anyone advocating that moving waway from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for racsim indirectly. i get that that is not the intent of the person, but it is the end they found.
        gruez 3y ago
        >i suppose the point being made here is that we are currently in a place of racism, and anyone advocating that moving waway from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for racsim indirectly. It's trivial to reword this for "the state of moral values", eg. "we are currently in a place of degrading moral values, and anyone advocating that moving away from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for degrading moral values indirectly". In other words, both "racism" and "the state of moral values" are culture war topics, and I don't how you can justify privileging one without having to invoke your own political beliefs.
- healthdare 3y ago
  [dead]
- lmm 3y ago
  The first half being the poor and disenfranchised, and the second half being the rich and powerful. And they're not really interested in the culture wars per se, they're just a convenient tool for preventing the lower classes from finding common cause.
nradov 3y ago
Eliminating employer-based health insurance doesn't require socialized healthcare. Another approach would be to require everyone to purchase private insurance on a retail basis, with subsidies for low-income people.
- codetrotter 3y ago
  My impression is that the problem with health insurance is that it incentivises hospitals to mark up all of their invoice items by factors of tens. And that behind closed doors the insurance companies negotiate lower actual prices for themselves, so that they don't ever even really pay that much to the hospitals. Which, on its own is not a problem. But the problem is that the end result of this is that anyone who is without health insurance is completely screwed the moment they get a severe health problem. And I don't see any reason why anyone should end up economically f*cked for life just because they didn't have health insurance in any one particular moment of their life where something bad happened to them. But as a first approximation, it would still certainly be an improvement to untangle the employers from the health insurance. And have people buy health insurance privately for a couple of decades and then with the experience of that in hand improve things further. Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good an all that.
  - mixdup 3y ago
    I don't know that splitting existing private insurance from employment would be much better Given how expensive it is, even if wages went up to compensate, you're still directly tied to continued employment to afford paying for it on your own. Subsidies would take a while to kick in and be a bureaucratic nightmare It would just quite simply be infinitely better if you didn't have to deal with insurance at all and you could just go to the doctor. No need for two decades of a slightly different kind of hell to try to convince us
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

solardev 3y ago

Half the country's been trying for decades, the other half's more interested in culture wars.

gruez 3y ago
>the other half's more interested in culture wars. Are they? Looking at the polls[1], it's not really clear either way. For instance much more republicans think that "the state of moral values" is a "big problem", which seems to suggest they're "more interested in culture wars", but at the same time for "racism" the numbers are flipped. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-health-costs-partisan-cooperation-among-the-nations-top-problems/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/06/21/inflation-he...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- truculent 3y ago
  Creating an equivalence between “moral values” and racism is the goal of “culture war” framing. Interesting to see it working, I suppose
  - gruez 3y ago
    Do you have a justification for that claim that isn't along the lines of "our cause is just and is worth fighting for/debating. Their cause is unjust and is just 'culture war' issues meant to distract"?
    - hasmolo 3y ago
      i suppose the point being made here is that we are currently in a place of racism, and anyone advocating that moving waway from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for racsim indirectly. i get that that is not the intent of the person, but it is the end they found.
      - gruez 3y ago
        >i suppose the point being made here is that we are currently in a place of racism, and anyone advocating that moving waway from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for racsim indirectly. It's trivial to reword this for "the state of moral values", eg. "we are currently in a place of degrading moral values, and anyone advocating that moving away from that place is bad, happens to be advocating for degrading moral values indirectly". In other words, both "racism" and "the state of moral values" are culture war topics, and I don't how you can justify privileging one without having to invoke your own political beliefs.
healthdare 3y ago
[dead]
lmm 3y ago
The first half being the poor and disenfranchised, and the second half being the rich and powerful. And they're not really interested in the culture wars per se, they're just a convenient tool for preventing the lower classes from finding common cause.

nradov 3y ago

Eliminating employer-based health insurance doesn't require socialized healthcare. Another approach would be to require everyone to purchase private insurance on a retail basis, with subsidies for low-income people.

codetrotter 3y ago
My impression is that the problem with health insurance is that it incentivises hospitals to mark up all of their invoice items by factors of tens. And that behind closed doors the insurance companies negotiate lower actual prices for themselves, so that they don't ever even really pay that much to the hospitals. Which, on its own is not a problem. But the problem is that the end result of this is that anyone who is without health insurance is completely screwed the moment they get a severe health problem. And I don't see any reason why anyone should end up economically f*cked for life just because they didn't have health insurance in any one particular moment of their life where something bad happened to them. But as a first approximation, it would still certainly be an improvement to untangle the employers from the health insurance. And have people buy health insurance privately for a couple of decades and then with the experience of that in hand improve things further. Not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good an all that.
- mixdup 3y ago
  I don't know that splitting existing private insurance from employment would be much better Given how expensive it is, even if wages went up to compensate, you're still directly tied to continued employment to afford paying for it on your own. Subsidies would take a while to kick in and be a bureaucratic nightmare It would just quite simply be infinitely better if you didn't have to deal with insurance at all and you could just go to the doctor. No need for two decades of a slightly different kind of hell to try to convince us
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]