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Its origin is in the 1940s. To combat concerns about inflation, the 1942 Stabilization Act was passed. It was designed to limit employers' freedom to raise wages and therefore to compete on the basis of pay for scarce workers. The actual result of the act was that employers began to offer health insurance benefits as incentives instead.
Voilà ! Employers were then thrust into in the health insurance business. Since, by law, health benefits could be considered part of compensation but did not count as income, workers did not have to pay income tax or payroll taxes on those benefits. So by 1943, employers had an increased incentive to provide health insurance plans for their workers, and the current 7-decades-long era of employer-provided health insurance began.
You can thank FDR and the Dem House and Dem Senate in 1942 for that.
Maybe they should have given free lunches or vouchers for various things like meals and transportation as fringe benefits, instead of being allowed to get involved with employees health care.
Strange that once this was implemented it stuck instead of being temporary. It is unsettling as well, because this was part of a depression era program, with a specific purpose and unnecessary and damaging beyond that period.
why use the liberal lie of "how many die without insurance.. thousands"....
yet
and yet 2.5 million died WITH INSURANCE
* over 180,000 seniors (those over 65) die each year....while ON medicare(A GOVERNMENT INSURANCE
* 75k died because of alcohol
* in 2010 there were 33,000 traffic deaths (lowest level ever recorded)
* 146k people in the USA die each year from prescribed medication( hmmm 15,000 die each year from illegal drugs...but 146,000 die from PROPERLY prescribed drugs) ((((In an average year, 1.6 million people are hospitalized due to the side effects of prescribed drugs))))
* Approximately 180,000 people die each year partly as a result of doctor- caused injury
Just throwing this out there... The numbers have been updated.
Maybe they should have given free lunches or vouchers for various things like meals and transportation as fringe benefits, instead of being allowed to get involved with employees health care.
Strange that once this was implemented it stuck instead of being temporary. It is unsettling as well, because this was part of a depression era program, with a specific purpose and unnecessary and damaging beyond that period.
Congress has had 70+ years to change it. Neither party will do so due to the immense popularity of the employer-provided health insurance benefit.
Just how would there be so much savings? By eliminating the profits of the insurance companies? I agree that would happen, but it is a small part of total healthcare costs.
If all medical care was at medicare rates, it would precipitate a healthcare crisis, as MANY hospitals and practices would go bankrupt.
Medicare rates tend to be far lower than private insurance, which is why Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic stratify patients according to payer class. If they did not, they would go bankrupt like Henneman did in Philadelphia.
This is true.
Our current clunky and much patched system does not pay for everyone - or people wouldn't be living on the streets due to medical costs - but most of us do manage one way or another. I think M4A could potentially free up money now going into insurance company's shareholders and executive suites, though.
But realizing the full savings promised by M4A and similar ideas requires cost containment on the part of providers, including hospitals and pharmaceuticals. And that is a VERY hard row to hoe.
I don't know whether any of the current proposals being bandied about resemble the Swiss system, as I understand that system to be. Everyone is required to pay in, and everyone receives a certain standard of care. If you want more than that, you can buy more, so private insurers have not gone out of the healthcare business. And, IIRC, people who need the extra insurance can get premium subsidies if they qualify, but don't quote me on that.
I'm not an actuary or anything even close, so like just about all of us, I have to trust those who are as to how the math works out.
I recently spent a few hours in an ER. Total bill came to about $20K, and the providers were allowed to charge me $450. How was the rest taken care of? Accounting makes it go away.
The thing that bugs me the most is that here is no way for me to find out if I and/or Medicare overpaid or underpaid. If I get a bill from my mechanic, I can look up standard shop rates and demand to know why I was charged $200 more than George was. And there had better be an intelligible reason, or I'm seeing the mechanic in small claims court. You can't do that with a doctor or hospital bill. As you note, Medicare sets its own rates. Providers accept Medicare rates because at least they can reliably get something. But guess what - private insurers also have rate schedules for what and how much they will pay. And these differ between insurers.
We'll never have transparency on these issues unless there is a standard medical care shop rate that we can all see. And I suspect a lot of major players DON'T WANT US TO HAVE THAT.
Congress has had 70+ years to change it. Neither party will do so due to the immense popularity of the employer-provided health insurance benefit.
It is all we have ever known. But we needed protections from its abuse, the ACA is quite popular and even many conservative states have embraced Medicaid expansion under ACA.
It is all we have ever known. But we needed protections from its abuse, the ACA is quite popular and even many conservative states have embraced Medicaid expansion under ACA.
The point is, don't think for a second that Medicare is free health care. It's not. Seniors STILL have to pay extra out of pocket even after making 40+ years of Medicare tax payments. 'Medicare for ALL' won't be free health care, either.
It's not a deflection. Canada has a multi-tier health care system just like the US, but Canada "claims" to have public health care. In the tiny print, they note that some things aren't covered (mental health care, medical devices, dental, vision, etc.), waitlists are long to see specialists, some provinces don't provide prescription coverage, etc. That must all be paid for out of Canadians' pockets or via earning/buying private health insurance. It's no wonder why 2/3 of Canadians have private health insurance. Canada's public health care is bare bones coverage with many things excluded.
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