Do you recognize that the nature of employment has changed?

[Infohawk]

The modern service economy means people are changing jobs a lot more often than they used to. People also need to change the type of work they do more often. They can't rely on the exact same skill set for the rest of their lives. Employers need to hire and lay people off more frequently and cannot rely on having a static number of employees year after year. The downside is that there is more job instability. The upside is that we have a more efficient, dynamic economy that can respond to supply and demand more easily. Do you disagree?

With this in mind, we need to recognize that health care should not be provided by employers (I'll leave it up to you whether you think the government or the individual should be the buyer of health care.) Pensions/retirement-funding should not be employer-provided. Instead it should follow the individual. (Again, I'll leave it up to you to decide if the government should set aside a portion of your paycheck or if we should all have our own accounts.) We need to have some parity for government employees. They should not have rock-solid job security and benefits that are no longer what the average American can expect. Do you disagree?

It seems like we'd be better off if we recognized this trend and govern around it as opposed to trying to legislate that things stay the same.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I absolutely agree that one's health coverage should not be tied to their employer. It kind of baffles me how most folks are just blindly accepting of how this is. I think cheap labor politicians (you know who you "R") love the fact that one has to risk their health to change jobs.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Health insurance would be my biggest worry in changing jobs. I keep enough in savings that I could, and would like to, take a vacation in between but I'd have to worry about a lapse in coverage turning some condition I don't even know about into "pre-existing."

I also approve of the 401k model, but I think it should be harder to get your hands on the money when changing jobs -- something like: a minimum of 50% must go into a brokerage account that you can't withdraw funds from until age 59.

 

[PrinceofWands]

Anything which hurts the average worker is bad. Period.

I guess, however, that if we had truly universal healthcare, losing employer provided wouldn't matter.

I guess in the end I don't mind any changes that aren't detrimental to the worker. What I do mind is changes intended to help the employer at the expense of the employee.

 

[spidey07]

I prefer freedom. One can always get your own health insurance, you don't need to participate in your employer's program. It is a benefit that you can elect to not receive and in turn get more compensation. Choice and freedom are what we need and what we have today.

This is what is wrong, people are too stupid to know that they can get their own health insurance and not through employers group coverage. It's not like that with home, auto or life but people magically thing health insurance is different.

-edit-
What you propose already exists today. Go get your own health insurance and it will follow you. Nothing is stopping you from getting your own health insurance.

 

[JKing106]

Originally posted by: spidey07
This is what is wrong, average, blue collar people are too poor to afford their own heatlth insurance, rent/mortgage, food, and utilities not through employers group coverage.

Fixed

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: spidey07
I prefer freedom. One can always get your own health insurance

Not true.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: JKing106

Originally posted by: spidey07
This is what is wrong, average, blue collar people are too poor to afford their own heatlth insurance, rent/mortgage, food, and utilities not through employers group coverage.

Fixed

Bullshit. They can afford all those an more but choose to live beyond their means.

 

[TruePaige]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: JKing106

Originally posted by: spidey07
This is what is wrong, average, blue collar people are too poor to afford their own heatlth insurance, rent/mortgage, food, and utilities not through employers group coverage.

Fixed

Bullshit. They can afford all those an more but choose to live beyond their means.

I can't afford 2k a month for health insurance on myself.

 

[sandorski]

The US Health System is a huge competitive disadvantage, ontop of being much more Expensive and not even covering the Population. There really is no argument supporting the Status Quo that makes sense.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: spidey07


-edit-
What you propose already exists today. Go get your own health insurance and it will follow you. Nothing is stopping you from getting your own health insurance.

Other than a tax and salary penalty because of government tax laws.

 

[Patranus]

Originally posted by: TruePaige
I can't afford 2k a month for health insurance on myself.

A middle of the road plan from Kaiser Permente with prescription drug coverage is $89.00 per month.

Make a CHOICE: Internet or Health Coverage

You CHOOSE to not be able to afford health coverage.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Infohawk
The modern service economy means people are changing jobs a lot more often than they used to. People also need to change the type of work they do more often. They can't rely on the exact same skill set for the rest of their lives. Employers need to hire and lay people off more frequently and cannot rely on having a static number of employees year after year. The downside is that there is more job instability. The upside is that we have a more efficient, dynamic economy that can respond to supply and demand more easily. Do you disagree?

With this in mind, we need to recognize that health care should not be provided by employers (I'll leave it up to you whether you think the government or the individual should be the buyer of health care.) Pensions/retirement-funding should not be employer-provided. Instead it should follow the individual. (Again, I'll leave it up to you to decide if the government should set aside a portion of your paycheck or if we should all have our own accounts.) We need to have some parity for government employees. They should not have rock-solid job security and benefits that are no longer what the average American can expect. Do you disagree?

It seems like we'd be better off if we recognized this trend and govern around it as opposed to trying to legislate that things stay the same.

For once I agree with infohawk, or maybe he agrees with me.

Everyone should carry their own catastrophic plan. These are very affordable even for a family.

It would still be in the employers best interest to contribute to HSA for its employees.

This would remove much of the "someone else is paying the bill" distortion thatis happening in the medical market.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: spidey07


-edit-
What you propose already exists today. Go get your own health insurance and it will follow you. Nothing is stopping you from getting your own health insurance.

Other than a tax and salary penalty because of government tax laws.

Exactly. I frequently find that spidey's idea of 'freedom' is when the status quo works in his favor. A 'the peasants have no bread? let them eat cake' attitude.

By means of massive tax breaks, the US already has 'socialized' health care for the most part. Freedom would be getting rid of the tax subsidies and letting individuals buy it on an open market with a level playing field. Not a market like today's where one option is tax free and first class and all the other options are fully taxed and nearly worthless.

And I say this as someone whose employer has one the best benefits packages in the country.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Patranus

Originally posted by: TruePaige
I can't afford 2k a month for health insurance on myself.

A middle of the road plan from Kaiser Permente with prescription drug coverage is $89.00 per month.

Make a CHOICE: Internet or Health Coverage

You CHOOSE to not be able to afford health coverage.

The fact that your first point is blatantly false invalidates the fact that your last point is true (while your middle statement is straw man).

I bought Kaiser on my own for years. Their cheapest plans start at just under $200/mo. And those insurers whose plans start at less than $100/mo have monster deductibles.

You should have taken my advice from another thread. If you want to be believed about anything, don't cry wolf about anything. No one believes a liar, even when he's telling the truth.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Patranus

Originally posted by: TruePaige
I can't afford 2k a month for health insurance on myself.

A middle of the road plan from Kaiser Permente with prescription drug coverage is $89.00 per month.

Make a CHOICE: Internet or Health Coverage

You CHOOSE to not be able to afford health coverage.

The fact that your first point is blatantly false invalidates the fact that your last point is true (while your middle statement is straw man).

I bought Kaiser on my own for years. Their cheapest plans start at just under $200/mo. And those insurers whose plans start at less than $100/mo have monster deductibles.

You should have taken my advice from another thread. If you want to be believed about anything, don't cry wolf about anything. No one believes a liar, even when he's telling the truth.

But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Yeah, but it's $89/mo for nothing more than disaster/bankruptcy insurance. Calling it health insurance is kind of a stretch. And one reason the market is like that is exactly because of the govt breaks we were discussing just earlier. The only free market for health insurance in this country gets little to feed on but the dregs, while the prime customers are for the most part all locked up in a govt protected and subsidized market.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Yeah, but it's $89/mo for nothing more than disaster/bankruptcy insurance. Calling it health insurance is kind of a stretch.

That is exactly what insurance is. What is sold today for the most part is health care plans, not health insurance. Insurance is for the unexpected and expensive, not the inexpensive and expected.

When you get a middle man(insurance/goverment) involved in the ordinary stuff, you get a health system like we have today. Consumers dont know or care of the cost as their copay is the same and health providers have responded by making things more expensive.

To fix our health care mess, consumers have to bear more risk.

 

[senseamp]

Wrong thread :|

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Yeah, but it's $89/mo for nothing more than disaster/bankruptcy insurance. Calling it health insurance is kind of a stretch.

That is exactly what insurance is. What is sold today for the most part is health care plans, not health insurance. Insurance is for the unexpected and expensive, not the inexpensive and expected.

When you get a middle man(insurance/goverment) involved in the ordinary stuff, you get a health system like we have today. Consumers dont know or care of the cost as their copay is the same and health providers have responded by making things more expensive.

To fix our health care mess, consumers have to bear more risk.

Consumers presently have all the risk they can bear.

 

[Patranus]

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Exactly, it is no different than automobile insurance, and that is the point, you have the choice on what coverage/risk you want to take.

Even at $200 per month, to insure an additional 16,000,000 people for 10 years (per the Obama figures) it would only cost roughly $384,000,000,000 not the estimated $1,600,000,000,000 Obama estimates his health care plan will cost. Not to mention the 34,000,000 people his plan will fail to cover.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Yeah, but it's $89/mo for nothing more than disaster/bankruptcy insurance. Calling it health insurance is kind of a stretch.

That is exactly what insurance is. What is sold today for the most part is health care plans, not health insurance. Insurance is for the unexpected and expensive, not the inexpensive and expected.

When you get a middle man(insurance/goverment) involved in the ordinary stuff, you get a health system like we have today. Consumers dont know or care of the cost as their copay is the same and health providers have responded by making things more expensive.

To fix our health care mess, consumers have to bear more risk.

Consumers presently have all the risk they can bear.

The only risk a consumer bears right now is a copay and that is often quite inexpensive. They dont care what doctor they see or where they buy their drugs, the copay is the same. Thie consumer is blind to the actual costs of services and this has let prices rise.

Ask yourself, why is a procedure like lasik, which requires expensive equipment growing in cost at a rate less than inflation. Thats right, it is typically not covered by insurance.

 

[senseamp]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: charrison
But paying for $89/month for a plan with 5-10K deductable is not bad at all. You just have to ask yourself how much risk you want to bear. For most people in most situations that would save them $110/month. And a 10K deductible is not going to send many people into bankruptcy either.

Yeah, but it's $89/mo for nothing more than disaster/bankruptcy insurance. Calling it health insurance is kind of a stretch.

That is exactly what insurance is. What is sold today for the most part is health care plans, not health insurance. Insurance is for the unexpected and expensive, not the inexpensive and expected.

When you get a middle man(insurance/goverment) involved in the ordinary stuff, you get a health system like we have today. Consumers dont know or care of the cost as their copay is the same and health providers have responded by making things more expensive.

To fix our health care mess, consumers have to bear more risk.

Consumers presently have all the risk they can bear.

The only risk a consumer bears right now is a copay and that is often quite inexpensive. They dont care what doctor they see or where they buy their drugs, the copay is the same. Thie consumer is blind to the actual costs of services and this has let prices rise.

Ask yourself, why is a procedure like lasik, which requires expensive equipment growing in cost at a rate less than inflation. Thats right, it is typically not covered by insurance.

Completely false comparison.
Lasik is an elective procedure most consumers can understand. I mean if Lasik gets too expensive, people will just keep wearing glasses or contacts.
If doctor orders an EKG, CAT scan, or an MRI, or a blood test, patient has no way to assess the value of that procedure without getting a medical education, and thus market forces are not likely to work properly. If a doctor says, you need a CAT scan, and that will be $3K, what do you expect the patient to say? Nah, I don't really need one, my life isn't worth $3K? The patient is also likely to be under considerable physical and emotional duress, with real danger to his life or health, essentially being made an offer he can't refuse. This so called "free" market idea of healthcare is a delusion, and a dangerous one that needs to be dissolved.

 

[spittledip]

The real BS is how much health care costs. It is absolutely absurd. I went to get my yearly check up about a month ago. A few weeks later I got a letter in the mail from my insurance company that informed me how much each item costs and how much they were willing to pay. The totals were over $1000 for a stupid checkup!! I owe some money- less than 100, but I can't imagine trying to get health care without insurance. Our health care in this country has got us by the balls. Unless you are wealthy, you really need medical insurance. The problem is greedy Universities, greedy doctors, greedy insurance companies, and greedy pharmaceuticals. And they are all in bed together. I am sure that some govt officials get some little money here and there to help keep these criminals in control. I was really hoping that Obama was going to help take these mercenaries down, but I am not so sure now. Hopefully something good will happen with the health care reform.

edit: As far as the OP: health insurance and retirement plans/pensions are provided by employers to make job offers more attractive. I suppose if employers want to dish out the equivalent cash instead that might be an option. The thing is we have a mindset such that we expect medical insurance with a job as part of the package or the job just does not appeal to us. I suppose we could get trained out of that mindset.. as long as there is some type of compensation equal to those benefits. In the end, it doesn't seem to matter much b/c money is money.

 

[senseamp]

Good read here:
http://www.newyorker.com/repor...awande?currentPage=all