Quote:
Originally Posted by krichton
Why anyone would want their healthcare tied to their current job or seek jobs based on health benefits is beyond me.
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Your government did that.
FDR levied a Wage & Price Freeze in response to Wage Inflation.
FDR erred big time.
If any response was needed, the correct response was a Price Freeze, letting wages float. Wages would have peaked, plateaued and then declined, which is exactly what happened anyway.
Because of the Wage Freeze, employers could not give pay raises to employees without prior written consent from the National Labor Board, and, no, that did not include Mom & Pop shops.
Since the National Labor Board always said "no" employers started offering to pay all or part of an employee's health plan coverage in lieu of pay increases.
Understand, the employee chose the plan, not the employer. Huge difference.
Later, your government screwed up again when the National Labor Board, now the National War Labor Board, declared health plan benefits to be a fringe benefit not subject to IRS taxation in 1942.
Still, employees chose the plan, not the employer. Huge difference.
In 1946, the American Hospital Association nationalized all of its member-hospital health plans into one huge plan with the creation of the Blue Cross, the first health insurance company. The AMA's Blue Shield followed a few months later.
Now, many employers are choosing for employees, instead of allowing employees to choose, and they're choosing the Blue Cross or Blue Shield or both.
Remember that the MAFIA controls unions, both government and private, and uses union pension to launder money. Union health plans were just one more vehicle the MAFIA could use to launder money.
Inland Steel, a union steel company, filed suit seeking injunctive and declaratory relief to block union control of the health plans. In 1949, the Supreme Court issued a decision in
In Re: Inland Steel, granting unions control of health plans.
That opened the flood-gates. Now all insurance companies were offering healthcare coverage, and the market share of the Blue Cross dropped from 80% to 54% in just a few years.
Insurance companies could do something the Blue Cross couldn't do, and that's offer life insurance. The Blue Cross is not a
bona fide insurance company, because it lobbied all the States to exempt it from insurance regulation and grant its hospitals monopoly status protecting them from anti-trust action.
You can pay premiums for 10 years, never pay another dime, but you and your spouse (and minor children) are covered until the day you die, and whatever you didn't spend on healthcare, you get all your money back, plus more money, enough to buy houses for your children or grand-children.
Or, you can pay the Blue Cross every month until you die and never get a dime back.
Which plan is better?
Well, the Blue Cross plan sucked, which is why everyone was dropping it.
So, the American Hospital Association lobbied Congress to change the IRS Tax Code, and that was in 1954.
Now, it's illegal to couple life insurance with health plan coverage.
Every American who lived and died between 1980 and today got screwed by the American Hospital Association out of $100s of Billions.
Those are the grave errors your government to totally screw up your healthcare system.
Your government has the power to correct those errors.
Your government can eliminate the tax break for employers who offer health plan coverage. That will create the incentive for employers to stop.
Your government can then tax employers who continue to offer health plan coverage. That also creates an incentive to stop.
Then, your government can offer tax breaks to employers who agree to pay all or part of an employee's health plan coverage, but only if the employee chooses the coverage themselves.
Now, you're back at the beginning, when employees chose their coverage and their employer merely agreed to pay all or part of it.
That drives everyone from hundreds of employer pools in a State to one giant State-wide pool.
Everyone benefits from that.
Your government can also repeal that part of the IRS Tax Code that bars coupling life insurance with health plan coverage.
Now, everyone can profit off of their own healthcare.
Next, the government can withhold Medicaid funding from States, until the States repeal all of the enabling laws, break up the hospital monopolies and cartels and define catastrophic coverage, and then allow people to buy insurance
a la carte.
That puts us back to everyone paying premiums for 10 years, never paying again, but are covered for the rest of their lives, and they get their money back.
Those who want additional coverage on top of catastrophic coverage, can buy it if they want it.
If they want birth control coverage, they pay extra. If they don't, it costs them nothing extra. If they want pregnancy/maternity/neo-natal coverage they buy that extra. If you don't need it, you don't buy it. If you want doctor office visits or pharmaceuticals covered, you pay extra, if you don't, then you don't buy it.
Break up the hospital monopolies, and you reduce the cost of medical care 30%-60% and that reduces the cost of health insurance 30%-60% and letting people choose their coverage instead of having it rammed down their throats makes it affordable for everyone.
And, if you force hospitals to break up into the clinics and polyclinics that Euro-States use, you save another 10%-30% in medical care and the drops health insurance costs another 10%-30%.
That's how you fix your system.
If there's still people falling through the cracks, and there's always people that have to have their hand held through every second of their life, you can do something for them.
And, if you still wanted a universal system, it would be cheaper, because you fixed all the problems your government created.
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