Kennedy bill would make employers provide care

reply to post by Hastobemoretolife


Agreed.

Duncan Hunter had an awesome idea during the '08 Presidential Campaign.

Let doctors provide $50 tax free checkups to as many people as they can.

Very few people cant afford 50 bucks, the docs would love the tax free cash, and the number of checkups would result in diagnosing serious illnesses faster thereby reducing the cost of treating them at a later stage.

Its a win-win scenario for everyone.

If a company hires 10 people with disabilities and another company hires 10 people without disabilities will both companies pay the same amount for health care.

If one companies workers work high risk jobs and another companies workers all work in a office will both pay the same amount for health care.

If a small company with 3 workers one with cancer pay the same as another company with 3 workers with no medical problems.

Up till now the premiums payed have been based on the above.

This means the people with health problems are discriminated against in hiring
Or fired because of health problems when the companies health cost go up.

Kennedy's bill does nothing to solve this problem and as it stands now the taxpayers end up paying for much of this.

What i see is that under Kennedy's bill not employers is going to hire any one with health problems just to keep cost down.

This will cause there to be more people to be unemployed just because they have health problems or disabilities.

I was disabled by previous employers and it took 15 years before the doctors were able to give me the right diagnosis (sarcoidosis and neurosarcoidosis)so that i could even go on disability.
And it took doctors from UCLA that work for the VA to give me the right diagnosis.
By then i no longer could get SSD or SSI because i had not been able to work a job that payed SS for years.
There was no way i could pay for health insurance working under the table job that were the only ones i could get.
If these under the table employers had been forced to buy health insurance I would never have had even those jobs.

I see some companies in the US not hiring anyone over 45 years old just to keep there health care cost down.

How will kennedy's bill save the government money.

The government will be stuck with paying for the health care for all disabled people under his bill.



[edit on 6-6-2009 by ANNED]

Originally posted by disgustedbyhumanity
reply to post by mikerussellus

 

They should pay them a decent enough wage so that they can afford to get work in an eficiient manner, eat nutriously, have a decent dwelling, health care, and afford the other neccesities of life. That is the duty of an employer. If things are so tight that an employer needs to exploit their employees, then they shouldn't be in business.

Sure prices would go up. This would be ok because the average income would increase proportionly as well. But to make it happen we need to choke out the cheap foriegn imports which have destroyed our economy for all but those who do the importing of these cheap goods. In our quest for cheap goods made by slave labor we are in effect requiring small busineess to treat their employeeslike slave labor. When will people wake up to this fact?

What are you talking about. If a business is profitable then it deserves to stay in business, if they are profitable and their employee's make minimum wage then that is the employee's fault for not finding a different job. Or better yet why don't they start their own business.

In fact why don't you start your own business and treat your employee's they way you are talking about. All this slave labor crap is exactly that... crap. If you don't like America and capitalism, assuming you live in America, go move to a country where they have a system like you like.

Me personally I like being able to confidently know that I can go from nothing to something if I work hard enough. I just read a story today about how the Europeans Socialist Parties across the country don't have much chance of winning the up coming elections over there.

High taxes and policies that force business to make bad business decisions are detrimental to the quality of life. I mean sure some things sucks but we aren't ever going to live in an Utopia and I'd say the quality of life for the poor here in America is pretty damn good.

This will kill small business then you know what that means, no small business mean you really will be susceptible to slave labor because the only people that will be able to afford to hire anybody will be giant corporations.

You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

reply to post by ANNED


You mean we the people will foot the bill right?

Do you believe it is a good business practice to avoid hiring people who will cost you more money?

Originally posted by Chakotay
So its OK if small business kills me, the one who makes it able to go overseas on vacation, drive a luxury car, and have the best medical care- while I and my fellow workers go without?

Then small business is injustice.

Now if the US wants to SUBSIDIZE SMALL BUSINESS WORKERS by paying for our health care-

and if the legislation puts a cap on the Ferrari-driving doctors and health administrators-

and if my boss has to sell the second house and BMW to pay for it;

well, since I haven't been able to afford to go see a doc for 20 years-

lets just say I really don't regret voting for Obama-san.

Where does this attitude of entitlement come from? No one owes you anything.

If you are so much better than the person who gives you a job, then make sure your credit is in order, write up a business plan and see if you can get a SBA loan to launch your own business.

Then... IF you can successfully run it for a profit, you can decide to pay your employees (especially the whiny air of entitlement ones) more per hour & provide benefits for them out of your profits

OR You can decide to drive the nice car YOU EARNED, sleep in the nice house YOU EARNED and go to the doctors YOU PAY FOR.

The delusion in the "entitlement mentality" is that there will be a way to finance everything you *think* the world owes you.

Well the world doesn't own you JACK. You either build a better mousetrap or you work for the guy who did. You either save your money to afford the things you want and need or you go without.

That's how life really works & the sooner you "entitlement minded" fools wake up to that reality, the faster this country might actually manage to recover.

reply to post by SurvivalGearDepot


That sounds good to me, 50 bucks is cheap.

Of course that plan makes to much sense for our politicians up in Washington to implement it.

I dont see this killing small business at all. I think this is a good idea, companies need to take responsibility for their employees. If you cant afford them dont hire them. Youd see less medicare usage and people would actually have to pay half their healthcare. Id restrict this though so you arent forced to pay for families, only the person working for you. Its not right to force any company to pay healthcare for an entire family. I think insurance companies should raise the rates on those people and lower individual healthcare. This whole thing is an obvious fix to a broken system.

I mean come on, I pay 220 per month if I buy superb health insurance flat out by myself. A company only has to pay half that. If you cant afford 110 bucks a month to support your employee then you dont deserve to have the employee. You guys need to get your facts straight or get your learn on. You can look at cheap plans the quotes from bluecross blue shield.

[edit on 8-6-2009 by Memysabu]

FANTASTIC!!! Why am I not surprised. The first health care bill (obamas) going through states that everything will be paid for by taxing all money used to pay for health insurance. (taxing both employees and employers.)

The businesses that do have health insurance already saw that (speaking from experience) and had a fit because there is no way they could continue providing health care. Most got ticked off and said "fine we just wont provide it anymore if this goes through"

NOW SURPRISE!!! The govt is going to make it manditory??? TOTAL BS! That will be the straw that breaks the camels back guaranteed.

[edit on 8-6-2009 by mrsdudara]

Originally posted by Memysabu
I dont see this killing small business at all.

I do, there are A LOT of small businesses that just don't have the profit margin for this additional expense, especially the way the economy is now!

I think this is a good idea, companies need to take responsibility for their employees.

Why, just WHY should an employer HAVE to pay for an employees health care?

Shouldn't it be the individuals burden to take care of and pay for THEIR OWN health care?

When did this actually happen that Americans decided that people shouldn't have to pay for THEIR OWN health care, andthat their employer should!

What, in US past history, dictates that it is a right of an employee to get health care insurance from their employer?

If you cant afford them dont hire them.

And this is EXACTLY what is going to happen!!!

You think unemployment is bad now?

Just wait until something like this gets passed!!

People will be getting their pink slips left and right and you will see the unemployment rate shoot up like it never has before!

Health care is another liberal power grab.

The liberals love these issues because they can couch their crooked behaviour in we want everyone insured.

The truth is these liberals just want to control the health care system in America so they can waste and spend more billions while Americans stick their heads in the sand.

We can fix the health care system through a national private charity with Government oversight.

Obama, Clinton and other figures can raise money for the charity. Everyone that's uninsured will get 2 free physicals per week. Prevention is key because alot of the uninsured don't go to the hospital until they are very sick.

If a Doctor recommends a follow up after the physical then the Charity will cover it.

Also, uninsured with jobs will pay a small percentage of their income at the end of the year for Emergency room visits and over a certain percentage, the government will subsidize the rest.

The reason why Government health care is important to liberals in Washington has nothing to do with Health Care. It has everything to do with total control of the health care system and the 600 plus billion they will get their hands on. You're money gives them power.

Here's an article with some of the "cons" about mandated health care insurance!

The Case Against Mandated Employer-Provided Employee Health Insurance

Mandated employer-provided health insurance comes in three principal flavors:

* a pure mandate, requiring an employer to provide and pay a fixed percentage of an employee’s health insurance premium;

* a mandate requiring an employer to provide and pay a fixed percentage of
payroll for employee health insurance (with some mechanism to transform
unequal per capita premium payments into equal per capita policy benefits); and

* a mandate requiring an employer to provide employee health insurance or pay a tax, the so-called “pay-or-play” option.

The three are essentially the same in their effects on employers and employees as are the arguments against them, allowing discussion of only the first as representative of three, given it is the simplest and cleanest.

Here are some of the arguments against this employer mandated health insurance from this article, ...

The Three Basic Arguments

There are three primary arguments against the imposition of mandated employer-paid healthinsurance: the policy is highly regressive as (1) the uninsured, typically though not always low income, eventually pay for their own health insurance through job loss, depressed wages and erosion of other benefits; (2) the policy is inefficient because it is too blunt to distinguish between those needing and those not needing assistance to purchase health insurance; and, it is unfair to small employers and employees because (3) the policy fails to address the real problems of the insurance market for small businesses, while retaining rigidities that injure both, and substituting a hefty, direct penalty on them, i.e., a tax, in large part because they are small and lack market power. Other arguments, such as driving off-budget massive public expenditures by laundering them through the private sector, are also valid,

The elimination of jobs is not the only option available in response to compensation increases caused by mandated employee health benefits. Employers can change jobs. Reducing employee hours is possible. For example, reducing a $10 per hour sales clerk’s hours from 40 to 37½ a week offsets some of the employer’s increased compensation cost, but also reduces the employee’s pre-tax wages by $25 a week or almost 10 percent, and cuts government tax revenues. A variant is to transform as many full-time jobs as possible into part-time jobs to escape the mandate.

Okay, let's look at argument #1 above, there is a lot more in the link provided as an argument on this one, but this really sums it up, ...

Small employers have several possible employment-related adjustments available which they can impose individually or in combination with others. The most prominent is that one or more jobs will be eliminated. It is not even necessary to lay off anyone to reduce employment levels; attrition will accomplish the task and virtually no one but the Bureau of Labor Statistics will notice. Machines become a more attractive alternative under a mandate. Think computers to replace graphic designers or voice answering machines to replace receptionists. Or, products and services produced outside the United States substituting for domestically-produced ones.

The elimination of jobs is not the only option available in response to compensation increases caused by mandated employee health benefits. Employers can change jobs. Reducing employee hours is possible. For example, reducing a $10 per hour sales clerk’s hours from 40 to 37½ a week offsets some of the employer’s increased compensation cost, but also reduces the employee’s pre-tax wages by $25 a week or almost 10 percent, and cuts government tax revenues. A variant is to transform as many full-time jobs as possible into part-time jobs to escape the mandate.

And so, onto the 2nd argument, to sum it up, ...

Inefficient Policy

Mandated employer-paid employee health insurance is at best a blunt policy instrument used to address the problem of a specific group, one that affects a multi-dimensional 15 percent of the population, all with their personal preferences, individual needs and aspirations. The result is an inefficient policy, a policy unable to match appropriate means and ends, to distinguish between those who need help and those who do not, and to minimize the inherent inequities in any redistribution scheme.

Employer mandates subsidize some who have no reason to be subsidized, from the public let alone an employer, and provide every uninsured employee the same employer-paid subsidy regardless of their financial condition.
******SKIP******
Health insurance is a lump-sum benefit; the covered employee obtains a fixed benefit regardless of hours worked. The lump-sum nature of health insurance leads to another efficiency problem with mandated employer-provided health insurance, part-time employees. If part-time employees are not covered by the mandate, a huge incentive arises for employers to hire part timers because two part-timers will be $4,971 a year cheaper than one full- timer. Employees have similar incentives because insurance mandates do not raise (effectively, do not reduce) their take-home pay. “The low insurance coverage among the poorest families stems partly from the fact that most uninsured work part-time and thus are not covered by most employer mandates” [14, p.15]. There is also evidence that excluding part-timers from mandates artificially increases the proportion of part-timers in the work force

And the articles 3rd argument, ...

Fairness

A disingenuous argument in support of an employer mandate is that employers who do not provide employee health insurance compete unfairly; they transfer their employees’ health care costs to those offering insurance because uncompensated care raises costs to all who pay for health care, insured or not; therefore, those who provide health insurance to their employees subsidize irresponsible employers who do not. The argument obfuscates wages and compensation, and simply ignores the fact that all small employers compensate their employees for work performed. Some compensate their employees entirely in wages, other than compulsory taxes, and some compensate them in various combinations of wages and benefits. Those not compensated in part through the offer of health insurance can choose to use the wages portion of the ir compensation to purchase health insurance or not. Their choice depends on the relative value they place on health insurance, discounted by the tax subsidy provided. But since the money is theirs, the choice is theirs.

I feel that the government mandating employers to pay for their employees health insurance is just not the answer to the health care problem in this country.

The government should be looking into why the cost of health is soooo high and should be looking into ways to lower them, thus lowering insurance premiums and allowing individuals to be able buy their own health insurance
instead of putting the burden onto small businesses which are economically challenged anyway at this time!

And here's some tid-bits from other articles!

The Government's Role in the Health Insurance Industry

Laws which force employers to provide workers with health insurance, in addition to increasing unemployment, amount to blatant interference in transactions between consenting parties.

Employer Health Insurance Mandates and the Risk of Unemployment

Employer health insurance mandates form the basis of many health care reform proposals. Proponents make the case that they will increase insurance, while opponents raise the concern that low-wage workers will see offsetting reductions in their wages and that in the presence of minimum wage laws some of the lowest wage workers will become unemployed. We construct an estimate of the number of workers whose wages are so close to the minimum wage that they cannot be lowered to absorb the cost of health insurance, using detailed data on wages, health insurance, and demographics from the Current Population Survey. We find that 33 percent of uninsured workers earn within $3 of the minimum wage, putting them at risk of unemployment if their employers were required to offer insurance.

This just doesn't seem to me to be the answer, that is mandated employer health insurance, especially since our unemployment rate is the highest it has been in OVER 20 years, ...

Unemployment Rate Highest Since 1983

The U.S. economy cut 345,000 jobs last month alone. The count of total jobs lost in the current economic recession is 6 million. The unemployment rate, at 9.4 percent in May, has risen to the highest level since 1983.

And our present economy already has small businesses struggling!

Fed's Economic Forecast Worsens

Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, said that the Fed's new forecasts were "more of a reality check than a revision," given the deterioration in the labor market and overall economy since January.

This is not a good time to place more of a burden on small businesses

[edit on 6/8/2009 by Keyhole]

So, taking in all the facts in my above post, I see no real positives coming from government mandated employer health insurance!

Employers who can't afford insurance for all its employees will either let some employees go, or make some employees part time workers. Either way, now these employees earn less (or nothing) and still have no health insurance.

The economy is the worst it has been in over 20 years, small businesses are struggling and going out of business daily all over the US. Small business is the backbone of the US economy, putting more of a burden on these businesses will only cause more of them to fail or go bankrupt, further hurting the US economy and, again, causing more unemployment.

Some people don't want their employer to provide health insurance for them and would rather keep their full wages paid to them by their employer. Whether they decide to use these earnings for health insurance or not should be totally up to them!

Small businesses also don't get to "shop around" and get the best premiums like big companies can! Is this fair to the small business owner, who only has to pay a premium for a couple employees to pay higher premiums than big companies that can shop around and get lower premiums because they have more employees?

And this "mandate" for emloyer paid health insurance does nothing to help resolve or fix why health care costs sooo much money! Which, in my opinion, has a lot to do with judgments for malpractice (LAWYERS) being tooo high and INSURANCE companies charging doctors an arm and a leg to have malpractice insurance (New York Freezes Malpractice Insurance Rates), even if they never had a suit filed against them!

There are many more arguments against this mandated health insurance plan, but I think I made it pretty clear how I feel about this now!

[edit on 6/8/2009 by Keyhole]

reply to post by Keyhole


Very well said Keyhole. Thanks for the insightful post!

-E-

What the government really needs to do is to figure out why health care is so expensive (which raises health insurance premiums).

Along with the obvious reasons:

exorbitant malpractice judgments
Price of malpractice insurance
Lawyers
cost of drugs
cost of new equipment
insurance fraud

But, along with these reasons, some experts even believe that the reason health care is soooo expensive is actually do to the health insurance companies themselves!

So That's Why It's So Expensive

Blame insurance, not just tech, for spiraling health costs, says an MIT economist
******SKIP******
Now a young economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is challenging the conventional wisdom. After studying data going back to the 1960s, Amy N. Finkelstein has concluded that the real culprit for the rapidly rising cost of health care is the massive expansion of medical insurance over the past 40 years. Sure, new technologies play a role, but doctors, hospitals, and consumers adopt them so freely largely because insurance foots the bill.
******SKIP******
But the more significant effect may be that insurance guarantees a steady source of revenue for hospitals and other health providers. Such ready cash encourages them to build new cardiac-care centers and stock up on the latest high-tech equipment, knowing it will be paid for. "If you produce expensive new things for medical care, people will buy them,"

So, what they are trying to say in the above article is that the health insurance companies themselves CAN/MIGHT also be a cause of higher health care costs!

If people had to pay for their health care themselves, the health care industry wouldn't be able to buy all this new, very expensive technology, ...

According to some studies, as much as 65% of that growth could be laid at the feet of tech.

With the insurance industry so willing to pay the higher bills to use this new technology/equipment/tools, doctors and hospitals are more than eager to buy these things, and there you have it, to the average American, health care is now too expensive without insurance.

Why is Medical Care so Expensive?

Medical expenses are rising faster than the costs of any other service. They are climbing at rates that exceed not only those of inflation and dollar depreciation but even the Federal government itself. In fact, they are consuming an ever larger share of personal and national incomes.

Some 40 years ago American medical spending was estimated at 5 percent of national income; today it is calculated at some 16.5 percent and rising continually. Several reform proposals in Congress would boost the share ever higher.

Was this rise in health care costs due to the introduction of health insurance companies and their willingness to pay higher prices for health care that, in affect, drove health care prices too high for the average person to be able to afford health care?

Some people think so!

[edit on 6/9/2009 by Keyhole]