Medical Insurance - the Next Benefit to Go

Which is due to the union protections.

 

Insurance is neither a benefit of entitlement. It is compensation.

All things viewed as benefits by some should instead be viewed as part of your total compensation package.

It really isn't that complicated.

 

I' m with Doc regarding any sense of entitlement. I don't think people feel entitled to receiving medical benefits, exactly. But they are one of the true benefits of working. They are also one of the truly appreciated things about having a job.

They are valued, and much-needed by most people, and, as expensive as they are for companies to provide, they are/would even more devastating in their costliness to peon-individuals and their families. Note that the key word there is "devastatingly." Most businesses are cutting or stopping coverage either out of their own greed, or as a way around the greed of insurance companies (which I think are the real villains in this situation).

Well, individual workers have even less ability to pay such costs (except with their health, of course), and no way around the insurance companies, either, except to, again, play Russian roulette with their health.

People are "afraid" of being screwed over even more by insurance companies/plans, in every possible way, than they may be by their employers, and they should be. They also are afraid they will simply be unable to pay, period. And they should be.

 

Excellent point. And like all other compensation, it is being redirected to the big boys.

 

But surely we would be better-compensated to make up for the cost of buying our own. Right, Boom?

 

In my case it is because am 57 and have two serious pre exisiting conditions. I don't think I could find insurance for $16,800 a year.

In a world where everyone bought there own insurance the young and healthy would do fine but people like me not so well. There are a lot of economies of scale in purchasing health insurance. A plan with 300 members is much cheaper to administer than 300 individual plans. So when an employer buys a group plan it allows the least healthy in the group to receive care. The economies of scale achieved help subsidize the most infirm.

 

And JayFarrar heads into the clubhouse with a three-stroke lead.

 

People have no problem shopping for cell phone service and don't expect their employer to
pay for it. Why the problem with shopping for health insurance through Healthcare.Gov?

Pre existing conditions don't matter and it's a pooled plan so you are not paying based on individual. You also might have a chance to qualify for a nice subsidy,

 

I'm not convinced of that, unless it's thought that counties can be run by nothing but temps and part-timers, anyway.

 

Which is my original point. Employers are going to abandon their health care plans and push them onto Obama care, if it still exists in three years.

 

Well, to be strictly accurate, it is "hidden compensation," because its absolute dollar value is often not known, or certainly appreciated, by the employee.

Factoring in things like deductibles, copays and expenditure caps, which vary widely from policy to policy, the absolute value of an insurance policy can be only very loosely related to the premium costs, which is the number most employees usually associate with the value of their insurance.

To reiterate, anyone who thinks an employer who suddenly realizes a huge cost savings by downgrading or eliminating health coverage is going to plow that money (or any significant part of it) into wages/salaries in order to 'compensate,' they're nuts. It's going in the corporate cookie jar.

A union or particularly astute individuals would probably demand it, but only a tiny minority of employees fit in such a category.

 

We've gone the other way with benefits -- we compete with the foosball and free food folks -- but many industries are pulling back. Good friend has been a pastor at two large churches, and he buys his family's health insurance on the state exchange.