So you would support having employer provided housing. It's the same god damn thing, dude.

2/15/2011 5:14:12 PM

If all businesses are privy to the same tax advantage, then it is no different than lowering the tax rates...which you argue in other threads the US has the highest in the world (while simultaneously ignoring said tax breaks) so I can't understand why you'd be against it.

The point is, businesses paying a portion or the entire cost of insurance is not driving the medical costs higher.

Whether it should be a tax break or not is a different argument.

2/15/2011 5:17:13 PM

Quote :

"Sans a tax break, if the employer believed providing insurance landed him better workers, he would do so."

No, the employer wouldn't. Why go through all the trouble of finding group insurance and paying for it, when you could just give the employee wages and skip the bullshit? Businesses stand to save a huge chunk of money. It's not as if companies started provided benefits, and the tax code was changed later to allow them to write it off. The tax code was changed, and accountants started realizing how much savings could be had. Even later, when more and more businesses started providing benefits to their employees, it became about labor competition, and when health care prices started going ballistic, it was even more important.

Quote :

"If we eliminate the tax benefit then you are effectively double taxing the business and harming the labor, which is the point I was making. If the business gives an equal amount in salary as they were providing towards insurance, then they are now having to pay more towards every other tax that is tied to wages. On top of that, unless some other system rises up in its place, consumers just lost bargaining power in getting more favorable rates for their insurance that businesses had."

None of this makes sense. If you eliminate the tax benefit, and just give it to individuals, how does that harm the labor? The business would simply start paying the employee in wages whatever they were paying in pre-tax dollars before.

Quote :

"If all businesses are privy to the same tax advantage, then it is no different than lowering the tax rates...which you argue in other threads the US has the highest in the world (while simultaneously ignoring said tax breaks) so I can't understand why you'd be against it. The point is, businesses paying a portion or the entire cost of insurance is not driving the medical costs higher."

This is taken from my post on the last page.

Quote :

"Another thing to consider is the market distortions associated with having a third party payer, i.e. your company pays for your insurance that pays for your health care. We don't want a price structure where all employees, regardless of health, pay basically the same premiums. That's not how insurance should work. It's almost the equivalent of mortgage backed securities, if only in the sense that good is bundled in with the bad and a discount rate is provided in exchange for volume. The third party payer system is, I think, contributing to a rise in health care costs. There could, however, be overall deleterious health effects among the population - more people are disconnected, at least in a financial sense, from the true cost of their health problems. This, in turn, could be a contributing factor in health neglect."

2/15/2011 5:25:57 PM

Quote :

"It's not as if companies started provided benefits, and the tax code was changed later to allow them to write it off. "

Is this really true?

2/15/2011 5:29:31 PM

http://people.umass.edu/econ340/nejm-ebhi.pdf

Quote :

"The History of Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance The heavy reliance on employer-sponsored insurance in the United States is, by many accounts, an accident of history that evolved in an unplanned way and, in the view of some, without the benefit of intelligent design. “If we had to do it over again,” says economist Uwe Reinhardt, “no policy analyst would recommend this model.” The story of the emergence of employer-sponsored insurance has already been told, but key elements are worth repeating to provide a perspective on the current state of this uniquely American institution. Two historic events prepared the way for the emergence of this system of insurance. The first was the decision by President Franklin D. Roosevelt after his election in 1932 not to pursue universal health care coverage. The second was a series of federal rules enacted in the 1940s and 1950s on how employer-sponsored insurance should be treated with respect to federal taxes and in labor negotiations."

If you continue reading, you'll find that some employers did begin providing health benefits when the government made it difficult to raise wages. In 1949, the IRS made it so you could write off wages paid in the form of health benefits. Since then, we've seen a major rise in employer-sponsored benefits.

[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 5:42 PM. Reason : ]

2/15/2011 5:39:55 PM

Quote :

"The point is, businesses paying a portion or the entire cost of insurance is not driving the medical costs higher. "

Bullshit. If more people really knew what their employer was paying for their health care (or even better, had to pay it themselves) people wouldn't pay it. Is the same idea behind why your doctor can get away with charging $150 for a 10 minute office visit.

Incidentally, it's also why the extended warranties Best Buy sells are bad deals. Having a third party pay for a transaction always increases costs.

2/15/2011 6:35:03 PM

Quote :

"If more people really knew what their employer was paying for their health care (or even better, had to pay it themselves) people wouldn't pay it."

I'm sorry, but it simply doesn't follow. I knew what my former employer was paying and I know what my current employer is paying. If I told them to just pay me in cash and I'd get my own plan, I'd just end up paying more for the same coverage because I'd no longer have the benefit of the company getting the group rate.

About the only real disadvantage I see is a younger person could likely roll the dice with a cheaper option than your company might provide (though even this is changing with FSAs and HSAs) and come out better in the near term . But for a large percentage of the working population...families...they certainly wouldn't come out better.

Quote :

"None of this makes sense. If you eliminate the tax benefit, and just give it to individuals, how does that harm the labor? The business would simply start paying the employee in wages whatever they were paying in pre-tax dollars before."

You quoted me and then didn't read any of it. What I posted answers the question you just put forth. Ffs.


[Edited on February 15, 2011 at 7:19 PM. Reason : ..]

2/15/2011 7:16:53 PM

While this thread is obviously gotten off track, I would like to suggest to everyone the question "suppose we do remove tax subsidies for health insurance, employers stop providing it, and wages go up accordingly, what do we replace it with?"

Quote :

"And stop complaining that every post I make is trolling. Only people that can't handle objections to their argument say this shit."

QFT

2/15/2011 7:21:48 PM

Ooooo, oooo! I know some trivia about the origins of employee-sponsored health insurance!

Hospitals used to be like places you go to die. Medicine improved, and doctors were getting better and better at their jobs, but it cost money, and they wanted people to come to the hospital to get better . But they couldn't get people to go that often. So they did like a trial deal where a bunch of teachers agreed to pay in a small sum of money to get access to the hospital for year.

[Edited on February 16, 2011 at 2:52 AM. Reason : ]

2/16/2011 2:49:14 AM

I'm sorry to not have read beyond the first page

But you are upset with the behavior of these kids and instead of busting the cheating girl you make a thread on TWW? I suppose I can understand that, but why? Was it because you were just a substitute?

I know the sub job sucks and I imagine coming into school environment with whatever odd power/caste system exists and all the little worthless dickheads ready to eat you alive can get to you, but next time I hope you bust the cheater. A little hellfire does good for the young mind. Even as a substitute you are responsible for those kids for that short period of time, and an opportunity to actually teach something constructive has to be pretty appealing.





Also, life a bitch ain't it

2/16/2011 3:11:35 AM

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/02/16/teacher-natalie-munroe-defends-blog-comments-about-whiny-students/?hpt=T2

2/16/2011 9:19:15 PM