Can anyone tell me why employers should be the ones who provide health insurance?

[Mister Ed]

Let me begin with the disclaimer that I'm woefully under-informed and befuddled about health care issues.

I've long wondered, though, why we should have a health care system that puts employers in the role of insurance brokers. I can understand how that system may have gotten started. It was probably a good deal for employers and their workers alike. Health insurance would have been a form of compensation employers could offer that was as valuable as cash to their workers, but could be purchased by the employer at a bulk discount. A side benefit to the employer would be that a healthy workforce is a more productive workforce.

It seems to me, though, that as health-care costs have spiraled out of control, the burden of providing health insurance is becoming increasingly difficult for businesses to bear. It's inherently inefficient as well - why do we need the middleman represented by the employer-as-insurance-broker? Why does the employer need the expense of supporting an internal bureaucracy to administer health benefits?

And, for my part: as a worker, why is my health insurance tied to my present employment? Why should I have to change insurance policies whenever I change jobs, which is much more frequent and common than it was a few generations ago?

I guess these objections amount to a good case for single-payer health care, though by no means the only case. Aren't employers eager to get out from under the burden of providing health insurance, so they can devote more resources to their real business? If so, where is their support for single-payer? No matter how much the general public might want it, I don't think we'll ever see single-payer until big companies want it. Then we'll see it pronto.

I'd be grateful for any insights into these questions that others might be able to offer. In your replies, please remember my naivety on the subject, and bear this mantra in mind:
Information good.:dunce:
Flame bad.:grr:

[babylonsister]

1. Why, silly, because that's the way it's always been done! nt

[Xipe Totec]

2. To keep you chained to your desk n/t

[SoCalNative]

3. Fringe benefits

were once a tool to get the best and the brightest. Back in the days when people actually could take their pick of decent jobs, the amount and type of benefits an employer was willing to provide in addition to a decent wage would determine the offer you'd take.

[kestrel91316]

4. They shouldn't. But then I am an evil socialist. I don't support the existence

of medical insurance, except as a luxury procedure supplement to

SINGLE PAYER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Medical insurers are FUCKING PARASITES and they KILL. When is this country gonna figure out that they have drained us dry?? They are hookworms.

[Selatius]

5. It goes back to the bad old days when labor unions were first forming.

People's perception about government were different in those days. Back then, the government did not help labor unions, at least until FDR. When the labor unions struck and won concessions from their employers, they made their employers kick in money to cover their health care costs. They could not do the same to the federal government.

Now, to FDR's credit he did float the idea of government-provided health care, but he died in 1944 before the war ended and before the idea could get anywhere. Truman tried to take up the banner, but following post-war demobilization, the Republicans won power and with that any chance Truman had of getting a universal health care bill passed.

FDR advocated in his last years something known as the Second Bill of Rights. You can google it if you want, but one of the provisions he included in it was the right to affordable health care, regardless if one was employed or not.

[Canuckistanian]

6. It USED to be a fringe benefit

If I recall, when companies actually TRIED to lure talented employees, they'd vie to offer the best "fringe benefits".

Now, in today's "take it or leave it" attitude towards hiring, you're lucky to get health insurance at all.

[Cleita]

7. I read that when FDR was President one of his reforms was for

Medicare for everyone, which the unions supported. However, it couldn't get passed in Congress. Then the unions went for employer provided health insurance as a second choice. Of course then businesses started offering their non-union workers insurance as a benefit as well. It's been that way ever since, however it doesn't have to be. Most countries do fund their plans with some kind of payroll tax, partially any way. If we had Medicare for all you wouldn't have to worry about losing your insurance when you lose or change jobs. This is how the Canadians do it.

[Selatius]

11. FDR outlined it in his speech during his last State of the Union Address before his death.

Taken from his final Address:

In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.

Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.

What luck for the crooked industrialists that FDR died. FDR was the most popular president of the 20th Century in American history except George Washington himself. He could've rallied the people and the votes necessary to pass this into law. He was that popular and beloved.

[Kokonoe]

8. I thought because of wage freezes during the war.

Unable to offer more money. Employers gave extra benefits to get around the freeze.

[SoCalDem]

9. It was a way around wage & price freezes

and once the wage freeze was lifted, people liked it, it was cheap (then) and employers kept it as an attractive benefit.

HMOs emerged and everything changed and got expensive, and were all stuck with it.

People were hostage to their job if they had insurance and were ailing or had a sick child. Bosses used is as leverage and a handy way to avoid ever giving real raises again

[iamtechus]

10. It smacks of fascism

[eridani]

12. Because it's a form of cherrypicking that the parasite insurance companies just love

Employed adults, are, on average, much healthier than the adult population as a whole. That gives a pack of useless shitstains chance to bet that not many will get sick, which is a profitable bet. They transfer money from the pockets of healthy people to themselves, using as little of it as possible to pay for the care of sick people.

[dflprincess]

13. It protects the status quo

and helps keep the workers in their place. If you're worried about your health insurance, you won't make waves.

[madville]

14. It's a burden for small and large business

The owner of the company I am with pays $8500 a month for health coverage on his 18 employees, our monthly payroll is around $70,000. I really don't know how any small business makes it anymore paying for health benefits, various insurances and taxes on top of payroll. Look at the billions GM owes the UAW just for health care, health care is killing our economy. I guess it wasn't so bad when everyone drank and smoked and didn't expect to live past 60 because there weren't treatments for many things like nowadays.

[RagAss]

15. Because they fuck with our health every day by driving us into the ground ?

[krispos42]

16. How else can they keep you from leaving?

Or starting your own small business?



Jeez, you have to remember... corporate servitude is good, it leads to higher executive pay and shareholder dividends!

[Hannah Bell]

17. so people can't easily quit their jobs for another one, or a break.

so they will put up with mass shit to keep coverage.

[Kablooie]

18. Only people that work for successful companies deserve health insurance.

Everyone else had better die, and decrease the surplus population.

It's the Amerakan way.

[jberryhill]

19. Easy - Work Or Die

People who do not have paying jobs are not useful. They should get sick and die for the good of the species.

That was pretty much the message I got during a stretch of unemployment years ago.