Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
what you're saying is not true. A larger company doesn't necessarily get rates that are any better than a small company would. In fact, very often it's the opposite because of all the retirees that get coverage as part of their retirement package.
Companies get rates based on the number of employees to spread out the risk.
If a company is providing health insurance for it's employees, why wouldn't that cost come off their bottom line when they file their tax return....it's anexpense, just like any other expense....it's part of the cost of doing business.
It is a tax credit created by the government to give incentives to corporations to offer insurance to their employees. It is not just like any other expense. It is a deduction.
A company can provide health insurance for it's management without offer it to it's hourly employees....it's called a carve out. That's rare and it's also rare for the management to have adifferent plan than the rest of the employees....there's no reason to do that witth one exception, when have a union for example. In that case the benefits are often tied in through the union so, the company needs to get a separate plan for management (since they can't be part of the union) and more often than not, it's not as good as the plan the union employees have.
No they can't it is called erisa.(employment retirement income security act). You can look it up, but it is so complex you will need a lawyer to explain it to you.
You are not taxed on your benefits with a few exceptions. The portion of your insurance that an employee may be getting deducted out of their paycheck, is deducted pre-tax (so you're not taxed on it). The exception would be something like disability insurance (personal, not workman's comp). If you're getting that through your employer and paying for any part of it, you want that to be paid with after-tax dollors. The reason being, if you're ever disabled and you begin to receive checks from the disability insurrance company, if you paid for the premiums with pre-tax dollars, you're going to then have to pay tax on the checks you're getting. As long as you pay for the premiums with after-tax dollars, then you don't have tax on the checks you get.
You missed the point you are not taxed on your benefits. I said that. Unless the company is providing income instead of health insurance and then it would be taxed.
Health insurance is paid by some employers to attract employees. A yugo plan is not even a thought, that would just make it difficult to hire good employees because they bad coverage and their competitors don't....so, your thinking is all wrong.
companies do use health insurance to attract good employees, but if they did not have to do this to attract good employee...if the employees already good health insurance ...then there must be another reason, which i just gave. Sorry, but you are underinformed.
Companies get rates based on the number of employees to spread out the risk.
What I said was that it doesn't "necessarily" hold true. What you're referring to is true to a certain degree and several years back was by far the biggest factor in determining how a carrier would quote rates for a group that was considering coverage with them. Although Shortly after the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 went into effect, things began to change drastically in the way a carriers established rates for new groups considering coverage. Prior to that, it wasn't so much that rates decreased as the size of a group increased but, there was a magic number (that was actually very low) that determined whether or not a carrier was going to underwrite a group.
In general groups of 10-12 employees, would get full underwriting on every employee and any family he had regardless of whether or not they intended on being covered (because, they always could at a later time). The group could be declined but, if accepted their rates would vary for each employee depending upon their age, gender and if they had any family members that were getting covered. When a group was larger than that but, less than around 25, most carriers would require what they called simplified underwriting. Which meant employees only had to answer only a few medical questions (that answering "yes" to any one of them would disclose a major current illness) rather than a few dozen like with full underwriting. In general groups this size and larger received composite rates, meaning the rates were the same for each employee and any family they would be covering (although the gender and age of the group overall, may still play a factor in determining the composite rates). Any group larger than around 25 would receive no medical underwriting at all.
The size of the group was certainly a factor but, more so in the sense of it being a negative factor when the group was very small....so, the magic number as far as size was only around having at least 25 employees. What was a big factor that helped lower rates was if a large portion of the employees would be covering family members.
HIPAA forces carriers to take on risk they never had to before....a lot of which is really unfair to them. A quick example....a mom and pop type of business with one employee that has never bothered with health insurance in the past but now needs it because someone's health status has changed, can apply as a group and get covered (even though they'll get rated up and have to cover their one employee as well). The claims may be very large and if that person's health status is now fine after treatment, they can drop their coverage, sticking the carrier with all the bills.
As a result with the "handwriting on the wall", there are carriers now that do full underwriting on groups with 50+ employees. Carriers tack on rate-ups for even the slightest of reasons when ever they get a chance. Group rates across the board though, have gone up substatially all because of HIPAA. If you think size helps, find out what rates are with a big employer like GM for example and I'll guarantee you there will be small employers in that same state (that were even subject to full underwriting) that will have have rates 25-50% lower than GM is paying.
It is a tax credit created by the government to give incentives to corporations to offer insurance to their employees. It is not just like any other expense. It is a deduction.
I'm not an accountant, I'm a health insurance broker in Arizona but, when you say government, isn't that state government which varies from state to state as far as the deduction it allows along with the requirements to qualify for it.
No they can't it is called erisa.(employment retirement income security act). You can look it up, but it is so complex you will need a lawyer to explain it to you.
Being a broker, I get involved in COBRA and HIPAA which are amendments to ERISA but, ERISA itself is something I don't run into. Maybe you can show me where it states what you're claiming but, I can tell you carve-outs are done without any mentions of ERISA....I personally have written a few policies with clients that have done it on their group.
You missed the point you are not taxed on your benefits. I said that. Unless the company is providing income instead of health insurance and then it would be taxed.
This is what you wrote and what I was commenting on:
"What you have to keep in mind is that companies take into consideration the total compensation of an employee not just their salary. If a company does not provide insurance they usually make up for it in a higher salary, this is the total costs. These CEO's are screwing the whole country just so that they can get the absolute best health care without having to pay taxes on the benefits that they receive, eventhough it would make the company more competitive in the world market. Don't believe this happens then you have not been watching the news regarding CEO greed."
If a company does provide health insurance benefits to it's employees, it's usually because they're too cheap to offer it and that being the case, they're not going to compensate by paying employees a few bucks an hour more to make up for it. I've seen what you're talking about happen when it's a company that does provides health insurance to it's full time employees but, also hires part-time employees (many of which work full-time some where else) to whom they add on a few dollars per hour to their pay to compensate for the benefits they're not getting that the full-time employees do get.
It's the employee that has to pay more tax if they get more money in lieu of health insurance benefits. The benefits I was referring to not paying tax on when receiving them, would be in the rare case it was a cash benefit, like with short-term or long-term disability (if you became disabled) you would receive a check for from a policy you got through your employer (maybe AFLAC for example). What I was saying is that your company what deduct that from your check after tax rather than before they deduct your taxes so you don't have to then pay tax on the benefit you receive (if you ever do).
Otherwise, you lost me.
companies do use health insurance to attract good employees, but if they did not have to do this to attract good employee...if the employees already good health insurance ...then there must be another reason, which i just gave. Sorry, but you are underinformed.
Any job of importance that pays well and is concerned about hiring good employees, is providing health insurance to it's employees just like all the companies it competes with are also doing for their employees. Providing it is a given for any decent company a qualified individual would be considering working for....not providing it says a lot about an employer and just puts you in a class of employers that many wouldn't care to work for.
Or take Medicare. Other than the source of its premiums, Medicare is no different, economically, than a regular health-insurance company. But unlike, say, UnitedHealthcare, it is a bureaucracy-beclotted nightmare, riven with waste and fraud. Last year the Government Accountability Office estimated that no less than one-third of all Medicare disbursements for durable medical equipment, such as wheelchairs and hospital beds, were improper or fraudulent. Medicare was so lax in its oversight that it was approving orthopedic shoes for amputees.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
