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Gimme a break with the violins. Compassion has nothing to do with it. And your compassion argument overlooks the basic fact that many people could afford their health care if they didn't run around buying other things they don't need and are often bad for them, having children they can't afford, etc. We're all compassionate, but at some point, no one will be able to pay for all this 'compassion' in the face of total irresponsibility.
Aren't you the one who said you got free insurance? I'm not sure you understood what I was responding to (to be diplomatic, LOL). The OP said she doesn't think an employer should pay for health care of an employee with a pre-existing condition. Maybe the guy below me said it a little better than I did.
Quote:
Originally Posted by desertdetroiter
What the hell kind of America have we become? My goodness, we can drop 3 trillion on wars to "liberate" foreigners, build them roads, schools, hospitals and a host of other infrastructure projects. We can pay for their elections, eradicate their terrorists, and still find a way to build a 600 million dollar embassy in their capital. And all of this can be done with nary a complaint from the American people.
But asking an employer or a fellow American to contribute to the medical well being of the whole country, and folks are damn near ready to riot. "Why should i pay for so-and-so's health care," they ask? Is this what's it's come to?
I swear...i wake up some days and i don't recognize the place that i was born in 45 years ago. The selfishness and greed is incredible.
You know, I can understand the principles of conservatism, and some I even agree with. Heck, my father was a Republican elected official. But he'd roll over in his grave to hear some of this drivel here on CD about how employers shouldn't have to burden themselves with the insurance of someone with a pre-existing condition. I agree with the poster who said (and I'm paraphrasing) this sort of flies in the face of the "family values" platform of the conservatives.
You are both saying that employer provided health care pushed costs up?
That is truly an interesting question.
If prior to health care reform if you had a pre-existing system it was just about impossible to get health insurance. You MIGHT be able to get employer based insurance but that was solely at prerogative of the health insurance company. Also be having employer based means that in many cases those that are unemployed or work as independent contractors often face higher health insurance cost. By providing pools of health insurance for people that don't have or can't get employer based health insurance it offers a viable market alternative to those people that did not exist before.
Free? I've had company subsidized health insurance, but I've never had free insurance. I pay a hefty amount for my insurance and it goes up every year and my deductibles go down.
The only people that get free insurance seem to be union members.
That's because they are better negotiators than you are as an independent employee. My guess is that fewer union members get "free" or no premium health insurance than ever before. Companies can no longer afford it.
True, and people don't have to work for them either... Employee retention is an important thing to many companies.
We'll see.... No one ever said that an employer HAS to provide health insurance. They can also pay $10K less to someone to do the job.... Good luck getting the best people that way though....
Well employers have woke up and smelled the coffee. They can go to places like Malaysia, Viet Nam, China and Mexico and get their products manufactured and pay a tenth to a third of the labor cost and NO HEALTH INSRUANCE and still get AMERICANS along with the rest of the world to buy these products.
The fallacy in your argument is the assumption that a corporation needs THE BEST PERSON at every job. They don't need the best person at every job they need somebody that is good enough for most jobs. The best people are needed to implement corporate strategy, market products, and design and innovate. In this economy those people tend to get the highest salaries. You can outsource the other stuff with whatever decline in quality there is more than mitigated by the cost savings.
Your post is indicative of one thing. You like most Americans don't realize you are no longer competing with just other Americans in the labor and talent pool. The labor pool is international and America is not as wage competitive compared to other countries and health insurance is part of that equation.
Companies started to offer health insurance, not care, when employees were scarce as a non taxable part of the employees compensation. Now, after several decades of outsourcing, uncontrolled immigration and automation employees are plentiful and cannot demand the previous lever of compensation.
The corporations backed a the current health insurance bill because it demanded that everyone take part in a private sector insurance plan and to relive the corporations from the moral requirement to pay for the employees health insurance. I object to this Bill because it mandates private insurance companies be involved. I would vastly prefer that both health insurance and care be provided by the government while saving the managerial, administrative and profit costs associated with the private system. I prefer to provide health care even if it sacrifices the looter's unjustifiable expenses and profits.
I think about this quite often and always wonder why it's their responsibility to pay for your health care? You work for them, they pay you for that work; they don't pay for your rent/mortgage, car, food or credit cards, so why is it their responsibility to pay for your health care? I honestly don't get it. Thanks
Good point. To answer it one must understand how we got to this point of companies paying for health care. As I understand it, in WW2 the government froze wages, so as to control inflation. Since companies could not offer higher wages to compete for (very scarce) employees, they offered benefits like health insurance instead. After enough companies started doing this they naturally lobbied the government for a tax break for providing this benefit to employees. They got it. Since it became cheaper for them to offer this benefit than to offer the amount of money if would cost for an employee to buy his own health insurance, the tradition stuck.
The solution today is to give individuals the same tax breaks for buying their own health insurance as companies get. That would give individuals complete portability and control of their policies and they would not have to worry about losing health coverage when changing jobs.
An employee’s total worth to a company remains the same whether that company pays for health insurance or not. If companies do not offer health insurance then in a free and open supply and demand marketplace they will have to offer higher wages to compensate for it.
What the hell kind of America have we become? My goodness, we can drop 3 trillion on wars to "liberate" foreigners, build them roads, schools, hospitals and a host of other infrastructure projects. We can pay for their elections, eradicate their terrorists, and still find a way to build a 600 million dollar embassy in their capital. And all of this can be done with nary a complaint from the American people.
But asking an employer or a fellow American to contribute to the medical well being of the whole country, and folks are damn near ready to riot. "Why should i pay for so-and-so's health care," they ask? Is this what's it's come to?
I swear...i wake up some days and i don't recognize the place that i was born in 45 years ago. The selfishness and greed is incredible.
Your post explains the irony of what the hell is going on in this country in a way I haven't heard before.
I don't want to be dependent on my company for health insurance...but seeing as it's the only place I can get it I don't really have a choice right now.
That's the inherent weakness in employer based health care. Not only does it limit who gets health insurance in many cases. It also no doubt affects who gets laid off. You've have to extremely naive to not believe that potential health care cost don't figure into the equation when it comes time to figure out who gets laid off and who doesn't.
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