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> And in many cases, e.g. healthcare, it’s unclear why we’re still bundling something into employment that properly should be separate. This, one million times
by casenmgreen 2y ago
> And in many cases, e.g. healthcare, it’s unclear why we’re still bundling something into employment that properly should be separate.
This, one million times over.
I read an account describing how things came to be as they are.
Apparently, it all started during WW2.
The Government controlled wages, and so some wages were too high and some too low, and for those set too low, it became difficult to get staff.
To make employment more remunerative, employers began to add benefits on the side - such as health insurance - and these were not taxed, either.
The Government eventually noticed this was happening, and moved to tax such benefits, and discontent with this was so widespread the Government backed off.
So then we end up with health insurance as a non-taxable benefit tacked on to employment.
- whimsicalism 2y agoyeah basically the only reason we have the current system is due to tax preferencing and any attempt at reform (like Obama’s cadillac tax) is opposed by broad interests
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> only reason we have the current system is due to tax referencing What is tax referencing?
- whimsicalism 2y agooops dropped a p
- airstrike 2y agoSame reason why high paying jobs like consultants, bankers, lawyers have a bunch of "perks" associated with those roles
- brightball 2y agoPretty much, but what was left off is the union demands for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the practice in the US.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> what was left off is the union demands for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the practice in the US Source?
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago> Pretty much, but what was left off is the union demands for healthcare as an employment benefit that truly entrenched the practice in the US. This just doesn't make any sense—single payer would free up the union to fight for more. Literally just the sunk cost fallacy.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago> single payer would free up the union to fight for more Do unions in single-payer countries typically have healthcare goodies?
- whimsicalism 2y agoI don’t really follow your comment, but it is true that labor is a large part of the reason that jobs bundle healthcare. Even in the modern day, they are one of the largest influential advocates for keeping this scheme: labor killed Obama’s cadillac tax which was designed to solve this problem. Not that the cadillac tax was ever going to survive, the American people are not educated enough to understand why it is such an important policy.
- tzs 2y agoThe difficulty in staffing was because over the course of the war the army expanded from under 200k soldiers to over 8 million, and the navy expanded from under 400k to over 3.4 million. That's almost 11 million people, which was around 12% of the civilian workforce, diverted to the military.