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I've never had employer-based healthcare, so I don't see why anyone should feel entitled to it, or why any employer should feel obligated to provide it.
lol, yeah cause companies attract the best hires with low wages and no bennies....
Earlier, I created a topic (Doctors are becoming the New Priests. They need to be cut down to size) arguing that doctors are the root cause of our healthcare crisis. In this topic, I'll make another argument: That employer-based healthcare programs disproportionately lead to outsourcing of lower income, working class jobs.
Consider a medium-sized manufacturer that has 50 employees, all of them Americans. They haven't started outsourcing yet but are considering doing so to save money. They need to hire 10 entry-level factory workers at a prevailing salary of $35,000 and 2 management-level jobs that pay $180,000. Of course, healthcare costs are going to be the same for both the factory worker and the managers (there's really no reason why they would be different). So these costs are fixed costs. Also assume that the company fully covers the cost of an employee's healthcare, and each employee chooses to get a family plan instead of an individual plan, and round up the $18,142 to $20,000 to get nice numbers. Ignore the cost of other benefits and taxes to simplify the situation.
Now, consider the employer who needs to hire these 10 workers and 2 managers. For the manager, the healthcare costs only add on 20,000/(180,000 + 20,000) = 10% to the total cost of employing the worker. This is pretty significant in itself, but not excessive by any means. But healthcare costs contribute to a whopping 20,000/(35,000 + 20,000) = 37% of the total cost of employing the worker. In other words, covering an entry-level working class job raises the cost of employment by way more, on a percentage basis, than covering an upper-level management guy. What rational employer wouldn't outsource the factory workers? Even if the healthcare costs were zero, they'd still consider it because of the wage difference, but the healthcare costs make it a no-brainer.
This is a big reason why outsourcing affects working class families so much, but not upper middle class ones. It's not because Americans can't do the jobs. It's because of an economic law - fixed costs increase costs of lower-wage employees disproportionately.
Conclusion? Outsourcing of working class jobs isn't caused by greedy employers. It's caused by the healthcare system where employers provide healthcare, and the employers are just responding rationally to a system that makes outsourcing the only reasonable decision. If Trump doesn't fix healthcare, he can't fix outsourcing, and if he can't fix outsourcing he can't fix the economy.
No.
The advantages afforded to US employers who are able to pit US workers against third-world peasants with the threat of moving operations to low-wage nations causes outsourcing.
Once the ability to import products into the United States from countries where workers earn a small fraction of what US workers earn has ended, immigration is reduced to a trickle and guest worker programs are curtailed, employers will be forced to increase both pay and benefits for US workers.
One doesn't have to work/have an employer to obtain free or low cost healthcare. Never has.
Free clinics.
Medicaid.
CHIP.
State programs.
Obamacare.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohhwanderlust
Free clinics are far and few between, and are very limited in the healthcare they can provide.
Medicaid, CHIP, and most state programs have income limits so low that it doesn't cover everyone in poverty.
In California for example, Medicaid income limits for 2 is $21,307 per year.
When in reality, that income level wouldn't even cover rent - with roommates.
And many states didn't even have that.
Minnesota social service rolls used to be filled with those from other states such as Wisconsin, Illinois, etc. who got sick and there simply was no help available. Not sure what it is now, but ten years ago many states didn't have health care for low-income people, or had so little of it that a lot of people were left out.
Two years ago in North Carolina, a state that did not sign up for Obamacare, a woman with one child who was making $1,000/month (rent in exchange for work) did not make enough to be eligible for a federal exchange plan. Her child was eligible for state funded insurance but she was not.
Free clinics? A free clinic might be part of the services available for the homeless and there are clinics focused on sexually transmitted disease, women's health care, prescriptions... some communities have such free clinics, others don't.
Community health clinics with sliding scale fees exist. I'm not sure how prevalent they are. They are often in low-income neighborhoods, and generally supported by a mixture of state and federal funding streams and grants.
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