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Once again you ignore the real issues because you're so happy Obamacare got through (by lies and deception).
OUR healthcare and insurance industries have not been FREE MARKET for a very long time since the government and trial lawyers started taking them over. And then the fraud, abuse and ridiculous extent of government FAILURE has once again proven that government is NEVER THE ANSWER. They can't do anything right and fail to admit their founding principle of VERY LITTLE government absent some basic things like military.
A FREE MARKET system, by it's definition will reduce prices in healthcare and insurance. But it'll never happen in the ever growing nanny state until the INDEPENDENT DOCTORS who are starting to OPT OUT of government control get more popular. And they're starting to crop up RIGHT NOW.
The USA is NOT a socialist political state with the principle that you drag EVERYBODY DOWN to even out the resources EQUALLY.
Lastly, Liberals are LOL that Obama "got over" by lying. We'll see who gets the last laugh. It remains to be seen.
First.. I will direct you to a post (and quote it here) from someone that answered to Free Markets on another thread that was well thought out and quite logical. Mind you some of what he posted was in response to another poster. http://www.city-data.com/forum/great...out-aca-2.html
Quote:
The whole reason its necessary to talk about health care reform is because the free market didn't work in a way that reduced health care costs to the point where health insurance, or health care, was readily available to all, of almost everyone, at a reasonable price.
What many people never do is accept the fact that free markets sometimes fail. Have you ever asked yourself why you have public utilities for gas and electricity? Do you think this was part of a grand socialist conspiracy? There are specific reasons why the free market failed when it came to providing these services and why we ended up with a regulated monopoly that is controlled by the government in fifty separate states in the USA.
The health care industry is subject to market failure, in brief, because of high entry barriers for those attempting to enter the market as sellers, a limited number of sellers (particularly in smaller communities), absence of good information about the services that are provided that is available to the millions of purchasers, ability by the seller to differentiate their product from other similar products, and finally the fact that health care decisions are often made on an emergency basis with little time for reflection by purchasers.
Using labels like "socialized medicine" is a huge portrayal of ignorance. No one is suggesting that the state actually own clinics, hospitals, or pharmaceutical companies. Under the ACA, the state is leaving private insurance companies in charge of even the insurance market. I don't know where you get "socialized" out of that. I suspect its something you're parroting from a newspaper article.
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Secondly... indeed we are not a socialistic state.. and not all the countries on that list are considered socialistic either. EVERY FREE nation in the world operates on a MIXED ECONOMY. There is no such thing as an entirely FREE market economy. It is a utopia and is no more healthy than a pure socialistic one or communist nation.
Third - many of us can agree that health insurance has created a middle man effect that has led to inflation of prices - but it exists for many reasons. Saying it never should have happened in the first place, doesn't address the problems that we actually have now. Being angry at "liberals" because we want to fix what's broken and make sure everyone can get coverage when they are sick, doesn't fix the fact that many of us don't.. nor does it fix the fact that our healthcare is #46 in the world.
So, if you want to rant about "liberals" and you want to insult Obama and be angry and post angrily about it - go to POC and have at it. That board is loaded with it. What I'm looking for here in great debates, and have seen from many posters, is an intelligent conversation about the good, the bad and exchanging ideas backed by data and information . If you have someting to contribute along those lines, then do that. But if you want to just throw out hyperbole about how bad liberals are, then you probably should be posting responses to threads in POC.
With all the argument going on in the USA about so called Obama care one thing about the whole USA setup leaves me confused as an Aussie employer.
Why do USA employers pay their employees health care insurance, after all you are getting paid to do a job, why should the employer pay for you and your families health care ?
What do they get out of it ?
Since we have single payer healthcare in Australia health care for my employees never comes up.
So why do US employers want to be involved in something that is not part of their business model ?
I think many of the responses to your question got off topic. As Mircea pointed out, employer provided health insurance dates back to WWII. During the wage freeze caused by the labor shortage in the wartime economy, employers began adding health coverage as a non-cash incentive to attract and retain scarce workers. These employers lobbied Congress for a tax exemption for this compensation, which created a permanent expectation that health insurance be free and also tax-free. In other words, it was a series of historical accidents that caused the US to have an employer-based health insurance system.
The problem is, Americans who have employer-based health insurance are happy with it. They don't see that it contributes to the most expensive health care system in the world and makes it difficult for people who don't work for large companies to get competitively priced health insurance.
I don't see a change in the near future. People who have employer-provided health insurance are happy with it, and insurance companies like marketing to large employers and not having to market to individual buyers especially in markets where one or two payers dominate.
There is really no advantage to employers to be involved in health insurance. Times have changed since WWII. Employers are forced to create a benefits department and respond to employees health insurance problems. They must deal with the uncertainty of rising health insurance premiums.
Moving away from employer-provided health insurance would help make employers more competitive in a global economy. It would provide a competitive market for all buyers of health insurance to purchase coverage. It would mean that people's coverage is not tied to their job. By buying their own coverage, consumers would be forced to understand more about how health insurance works and what the actual costs are. Theoretically, insurance providers could compete on the basis of cost, customer service and policies tailored to individual or family needs. Under the ACA, policies would have to meet minimum criteria.
"Typically, employers pay about 85% of the insurance premium for their employees" never quite understood this because of in the 20+ years I have worked full time, I have always been on my husband's insurance policy. Meaning the companies I worked for never had to pay anything for me. Yet my salary rate was never offset to be higher than anyone elses, where the company WAS footing their healthcare. Crazy system.
Wage Inflation began in the late 1930s. Wage Inflation is one facet of several types of Inflation. Rapidly rising wages cause prices to rapidly rise. Wage Inflation occurs in only a few sectors of the economy, but not all, which is part of the problem --- my wages are inflating, you work in a different sector/field of the economy and your wages are not rising; I can pay the higher prices for goods and services, but you cannot.
FDR levies a Wage & Price Freeze in 1940 and establishes bureaucracies to control Wages and Prices. The bureaucracy that controls Wages is the National War Labor Board, since Wage Inflation is occurring in job fields in the war-production sectors of the economy. Unions threaten to go on strike.
To avert strikes, employers began offering hospital insurance --- there are no insurance companies....all plans are through individual hospitals.
In 1942 the IRS and the National War Labor Board declare these hospital insurance plans to be "fringe" benefits, not subject to taxation, so long as the cost of the benefit does not exceed 5% of the employee's annual wages.
You can read the gory details here....
"Amounts paid by an employer on account of premiums on insurance on the life of the employee...may not exceed five per cent of the employee’s annual salary or wages determined without the inclusion of insurance and pension benefits."
Source: War Labor Reports, Reports and Decisions of the National War Labor Board (Washington, D.C.: The Bureau of National Affairs, 4, 1943) LXIV.
Source: Office of Economic Stabilization, Regulations of the Part 4001 Relating to Wages and Salaries, Issued October 27, 1942; amended November 5 and November 30, 1942, Section 4001.1 (h) (2), War Labor Reports 4, XII.
Source: War Labor Reports, Reports and Decisions of the National War Labor Board, Section 1002.8, LXVIII.
That was the third major turning point in the history of healthcare in the US (the first being the end of Free Market healthcare in 1933 and the second being monopolistic healthcare in 1939).
The 5th major turning point, and the second event that pushed health plan coverage into the employer was this...
Unions have the right negotiate fringe benefits on behalf of employees
Source: Inland Steel Co. v. National Labor Relations Board. United Steel Workers Of America, C.I.O., et al. v. National Labor Relations Board; United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.
"...pension and retirement plans constitute part of the subject matter of compulsory collective bargaining under the Act."
September 23, 1948. Writ of Certiorari Granted January 17, 1949. 170 F.2d 247 (1948)
"Following the 1949 Inland Steel decision by the Supreme Court, pensions became a mandatory bargaining topic and the subject of nearly all collective negotiations."
Source: www.nber.org/chapters/c7131.pdf
The 6th major event and the 3rd involving the employer-employee was this....
"Premiums paid by an employer on policies of group life insurance without cash surrender value covering the lives of his employees, or on policies of group health or accident insurance...do not constitute salary if such premiums are deductible by the employer under Section 23(a) of the IRS Code."
Source: Public Law 83-591, August 16, 1954; Internal Revenue Code of 1954, Section 106. For more information on the 1954 tax code.
That change in the IRS Tax Code resulted in health insurance being prohibited and replaced instead with a fee-for-service plan that everyone loves so dearly.
You can thank the American Hospital Association -- who wrote nearly all of the ACA --- for lobbying Congress and the IRS to change the 1954 tax law to screw all Americans once, and then screw millions of Americans twice by excluding them from access to health plan coverage.
Note that the 1954 IRS Tax Code creates a situation where it is cheaper for both the employer and the employee to receive increased healthcare benefits, instead of being paid higher wages.
I hope that answers your question, which is a very good question indeed. I only wish that more ACA supporters would examine their own history.
Answering...
Mircea
Without a lot of highfalutin language - and I wrote statute (law) for 20 years - I think I can answer the basic question rather simply. During a time when employers actually valued and wished to keep good, competitive employees they offered benefits as a way to attract and retain them.
Without a lot of highfalutin language - and I wrote statute (law) for 20 years, I think I can answer the basic question rather simply. During a time when employers actually valued and wished to keep good, competitive employees they offered benefits as a way to attract and retain them.
And sometimes, those same employers use the threat of loss of health insurance to confine individual employees, usually in their mature years, to "dead-end" jobs with little or no chance for advancement.
Still, for most of us this is likely to be a better deal than ACA, as the full cost of the program becomes apparent, and more of the most qualified providers leave the field (and it will be a while before the true cost of enforcement becomes known -- but how many bureaucrats and functionaries have ever pushed for a smaller, more-efficient system)?
And don't even think of suggesting single-payer; that would simply push all but the very wealthy into the Medicaid ghetto.
Not everyone has been eligible for employer health insurance. Part time workers, people who worked for employers who employed workers below a certain number, unemployed people and disabled people who could not work. Leaving those who were employed to have health insurance left a lot of people out in the cold when it came to getting health care and the numbers increased over the years.
And as an aside, in the beginning when employer provided health insurance was first mandated by the government, maternity coverage was not mandatory. That happened I believe in the 70's. It was a ridered option offered by some employers and the employees had to pay extra for it. Dental and vision were the same as was routine care.
Employer provided coverage varied from employer to employer. The larger companies usually offered better than the smaller. Some companies like retailers deliberately keep their people on part time hours so they do not have to pay healthy insurance benefits.
In other words, people who have good health insurance through their employers have it good. But it can be hit or miss. I am speaking as one who was a health insurance claims adjuster for around twenty five years and this has been my observation both for myself and the various claims I have processed for the many policies I have worked with for various employers.
"Typically, employers pay about 85% of the insurance premium for their employees" never quite understood this because of in the 20+ years I have worked full time, I have always been on my husband's insurance policy. Meaning the companies I worked for never had to pay anything for me. Yet my salary rate was never offset to be higher than anyone elses, where the company WAS footing their healthcare. Crazy system.
I have also always been on my Husband's insurance policy, he works for a very large company. I work for a small Mom and Pop company that does not offer any benefits, my salary was compensated for the no benefits. I am sure in my case, it has something to do with working for a small company.
To answer the TS.
Where I work, the employer pays 100% health, dental, vision, for the employee AND his family. Also match retirement funds.
For this simple reason, He started his company at the age of 49, before that time he never had health insurance, and hated that.
And yes, we get paid wel above average, and loyalty does get rewarded. There is a 0% turnover rate.
Without a lot of highfalutin language - and I wrote statute (law) for 20 years - I think I can answer the basic question rather simply. During a time when employers actually valued and wished to keep good, competitive employees they offered benefits as a way to attract and retain them.
You didn't answer the OP's question.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minervah
Not everyone has been eligible for employer health insurance. Part time workers, people who worked for employers who employed workers below a certain number, unemployed people and disabled people who could not work. Leaving those who were employed to have health insurance left a lot of people out in the cold when it came to getting health care and the numbers increased over the years.
And as an aside, in the beginning when employer provided health insurance was first mandated by the government, maternity coverage was not mandatory. That happened I believe in the 70's. It was a ridered option offered by some employers and the employees had to pay extra for it. Dental and vision were the same as was routine care.
Employer provided coverage varied from employer to employer. The larger companies usually offered better than the smaller. Some companies like retailers deliberately keep their people on part time hours so they do not have to pay healthy insurance benefits.
In other words, people who have good health insurance through their employers have it good. But it can be hit or miss. I am speaking as one who was a health insurance claims adjuster for around twenty five years and this has been my observation both for myself and the various claims I have processed for the many policies I have worked with for various employers.
When was employer provided health insurance first mandated by the government? I thought the ACA was the first time employer-provided health insurance was mandated. My understanding was most health insurance policies up until the 1970s was referred to as hospitalization. It included only hospital stays, which included maternity coverage. I don't remember doctors visits or prescription coverage until the 1970s.
When was employer provided health insurance first mandated by the government? I thought the ACA was the first time employer-provided health insurance was mandated. My understanding was most health insurance policies up until the 1970s was referred to as hospitalization. It included only hospital stays, which included maternity coverage. I don't remember doctors visits or prescription coverage until the 1970s.
I remember people had Kaiser HMO in the 60's here in the SF Bay Area... heard a lot of complaints... not many left over their complaints...
Last edited by Ultrarunner; 11-12-2013 at 12:29 AM..
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