idk man I just need to vent i guess
my employer “provides” health insurance in exchange for my time and labor, and for that great privilege they take $600 out of my paycheck every month (covers me, my wife, and our 1yo son)
that’s half our monthly mortgage payment; it’s 2/3 our monthly grocery bill
why?
Universal healthcare would probably not cost you that much with taxes. But instead a private company gets to reap all the benefits of your money.
“You should be grateful, peasant. That’s a good looking kid you got there. It would be a shame if she got sick. What were you saying, again, I just got a notice about a stock price increase.”
Your employer is likely paying another $600/mo for you as well, and singles/couples working for the company are actually subsiding your threesome.
The insurer-first system a stupid scheme that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
This is correct.
As an employer I would LOVE to be shed of this system. I have no reason to be involved in the health care of my employees, and given the state of health care in America there is literally no upside for my business. It’s all bad.
Unfortunately our system requires it, though. If I didn’t offer health care and instead just increased the base salary I wouldn’t be competitive. People would think I was trying to pull a fast-one on them, and few people in America know how to get health care on their own. It’s a mess.
Our “lords” have already told us why things are the way they are if you look at the “reasoning” behind why the Senate let the child tax credits expire.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
They literally use healthcare to chain you to a job. I have 3 coworkers that I know of off hand that have all said they literally are only working here for the health insurance…
This system can go to hell.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
As someone who lives in a place with universal healthcare, I would like to tell these people that many people here still work.
You know, food and shelter are also good incentives.
Hell, luxuries are all that are needed to work. If all my basic needs were taken care of I would still work because I like to travel and drink.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
That is just their attempt at rationalization. The real reason is much simplier: money, money, money. Lobbyists, Super PACs and the donor class own our politicians. The rich pay for their political campaigns and bribe our politicians in some interesting and creative ways. For example, giving a politician a million directly is illegal, but if he writes a book and then you have the SuperPAC buy a million copies of the politicians book that is somehow legal.
Can PACs accept foreign money? Or does a politician have to run a little SPAC scam to accept that?
Well the problem is that you are viewing it from a “normal person” vantage… you need to think of your employees as indentured servants, basically slaves you don’t get to actually whip.
Once you get the proper Capitalist vantage point, you realize you can use this “benefit” to squeeze the life out of your employees, specially any of them with Chronic conditions or just a family, as they are hostages to the Health Care you provide!
Extra painful that the current system is biased towards large employers. Easier to absorb that overhead if the business is large.
That’s right. For a company greater than 50 employees the insurance companies charge a group rate that is the same for everyone. Fewer than 50 and each employee is billed on their and/or their family’s merits.
Because I have fewer than 50 employees, most of my family employees use their spouse’s insurance from larger company than mine. And there’s little I can do about it.
For my small business I’m just as screwed over as the employee. If I hire a guy I can’t (and don’t want to) ask him him or her health questions, but because I pay half of my employee’s insurance I’m hiring with an unknown cost component. That employee might have a costly pre-existing condition for all I know.
If you make less than $103,000 / year (family of 3) and pay more than 9.5% of your household gross income on healthcare premiums, you will likely save thousands by using your state’s healthcare marketplace. You are likely eligible because they fixed the family glitch, now the 9.5% applies to the cost for family rather than individual coverage as before.
Although the subsidies will likely end after 2025 if dems don’t retain a majority in house/senate.
It could easily save you thousands of dollars a year… Like I’m 100% of it… Ask me how I know, lol. Please look into it. I think you have to wait til open enrollment in December? or when your healthcare renews annually. You might be able to do it immediately due to “hardship”. I don’t know the specifics of your situation but I’m pretty sure you and a lot of other people here would save a lot of money. I would talk with a healthcare_gov or your state agency agent, they get paid by the gov’t to help you through it at no cost to you. You can also get a low HDHP and get your own HSA to essentially pay no taxes for medical expenditures. I hear fidelity is good, due to no fees.
Speaking of which, is there an active financial advice community on Lemmy (like that old site that should not be named) like /c/financialplanning or something like that?
I realize I’m in /c/antiwork so it goes without saying it’d be nice if we have universal healthcare without all this baloney money being siphoned to these criminal insurance companies. Just trying to help anyone out in a similar situation. ;)
Incredibly helpful information. You don’t need to preface for a shitty situation you did not create or have the power to control. You’ve your part by providing care and empathy in the form of advice that might help some of us.
We got to use what we got for now. Can’t survive on wishes and wants.
In the US during WW2 employers couldn’t keep employees because of wage competition. This made war production extremely inefficient and slow. The War Labor Board instituted wage ceilings for critical jobs. But, they allowed employers to compete with health benefits. Employment and healthcare became intertwined.
After WW2 the War Labor Board was dissolved and wage ceilings removed. FDR, who’d proposed and implemented The New Deal and led us through WW2, proposed the Second Bill of Rights aka the Economic Bill of Rights:
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Employment
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An adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation
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Farmers’ rights to a fair income
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Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
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Decent housing
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Adequate medical care
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Social security
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Education
This would’ve disaccociated employment and medical care. However, FDR was labeled a socialist and authoritarian, demonized. We the People bought into the propaganda.
That’s how it’s been for eighty years: The leftists propose the same platform FDR did. And, they’re told to shut up for disturbing the idiots running in fear of one bad choice or another. All that’s changed is the efficiency and effectiveness of the hegemony’s propaganda.
big government guy proposed big government solution to unintended consequence of bad decisions by big government, is confused when people don’t want more big government meddling.
the real problem here is that people forgot about what the issue was and how it happened, and years later are clamoring for government to “do something”. and extra unfortunately, at this point it may be too late for any solution other than letting government just take control of all of it; i can’t see any other way to get all the shitty government decisions and interventions rolled back.
The US incarnation of capitalism has obviously failed. I’m all for revolution. But, I’ve no doubt that the vast majority of society would willingly give up their freedom, once again. Humans have been doing the same thing for millennia.
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i get the feeling that society really doesnt want to spend the money to give people healthcare.
It’s 2 fold, one party doesn’t want to takeaway private insurance because of the donor money. The other doesn’t want “inferior” people to get health care.
A double edge sword unfortunately.
Well, at least here in the USA, we already are spending the money. Getting worse results than the rest of the world and spending more money on it. Because private health insurance is a joke and we’re all the punchline.
Most Americans want universal healthcare. The problem is that we have a broken and corrupt system where our politicians are bought and owned by the donor class and lobbyists
I “want” universal healthcare… but I know the government will screw it up. There is just no winning.
The private insurance industry is going to price themselves out of existence eventually. People are going to realize they can save an enormous amount of money by having the government act as payer for their healthcare instead of corporations trying to turn a profit. Healthcare already does not lend itself to distribution via capitalism, you don’t show up to the ED and wave money around to bid on your bed. It should be based on need.
As long as people are allowed to go into debt, this industry and others like it will exist forever
Still waiting for that. Been my hope since I went on this $250-500 a month health insurance journey during my first job in 2005.
Mine is about the same for family coverage, and the shocking thing is that it’s pretty good relative to the market – my previous employer was about ~100/mo cheaper for an equivalent HDHP plan, but I’ve seen much, much worse.
Honestly, though, even more than the cost (having run the numbers, the tax I’d pay in a European country to cover similar services is about the same, all things considered) is the sheer level of friction that insurers inject into the healthcare system. You have to get a referral to a specialist even if you know you need to see one. You have to get insurance authorization for specialty treatments. You have to think about deductibles and out-of-pocket-maximums, and Lord help you if you start having complex medical problems around the end of the year and the maximums reset in the middle of your treatment!
We pay out of pocket for a direct primary care pediatrician for our kid (on top of his insurance, to cover any meds or emergencies) and the fact that there’s no insurance to deal with means that it’s vastly easier to get a hold of her to get a medical opinion whenever there’s a bad bump or a strange rash that needs a professional opinion. It’s shocking to see how things could be if insurance companies and PBMs and for-profit hospital networks hadn’t inserted themselves in between patients and doctors, with a sole eye towards making sure they pay out at little as humanly possible while maybe keeping patients alive in the process.
Insurance is extra expensive when you have a family in the US. I’m single and my monthly cost is less than $100 a month. Having a family is more expensive for everything.
But WHy dON’t YoUNg poPLE wANT tO sTarT a FaMILy?!?!
It’s likely 1/3rd to 1/2 of what the insurance actually costs.
Insurance numbers in the US are all made up bullshit numbers designed to funnell money from the working class to the rich.
My options at my last 3 jobs have all been more than 1400/month.
Do you think your taxes would go up $17k per year if America got universal healthcare? I’m going to say probably not.
I’d gretly prefer universal healthcare.
Best thing that ever happened to me was almost dying. Now all of my healthcare, everything, is taken care of.
That’s how fcked the world is.
This is madness. Where I’m from, we have a nationalised healthcare system and yet my employer offers private healthcare coverage for no additional cost to myself (free)!
yeah that sounds like an employer actually providing a benefit in exchange for you working for them
You’re dumb as a rock. And so is the yurobro.
In those European countries the employee often costs 20-30% more than their stated salary.
There’s absolutely no such thing as “my employer gives me extra insurance free of charge”. It’s not free. They’re paying for it.
As I worked for a small startup I know all the numbers. I received X gross on paper, the company had expenses of 1.2X, and I got 0.6X on my bank account. Oh boy, gotta love those “free” health insurances, unemployment benefits, paid sick days etc.
That’s wonderful. Where is this, if it’s not too personal, if it is, no worries.
The United Kingdom (and hilariously, it’s an American company that employs me and gives me private healthcare).
Private health care is very different in the UK. If you’re ever in serious ill health, or need anything remotely risky private healthcare will tell you to go to the NHS. It’s mostly GPs with nicer offices and NHS consultants moonlighting.
😂. I’m happy for you. Eat. Them.
America is a corrupt capitalist hellscape. It’s why I don’t have kids, only go to the doctor when shit happens and never pay the bill.
What a shitty, selfish way to treat the medical people who care for you when you’re sick.
They still get paid, what on earth are you talking about?
Why don’t you ask them if they mind you stiffing them after they take care of you?
What a shitty way to treat people.
They get paid regardless. It’s a crooked system, some of us don’t survive without being equally so, especially from companies and entities that barely know you exist to begin with.
Debt goes to collectors, they come calling, I ignore those too. Credit score in the 600’s. I’ll never afford a home so I don’t really care and I buy junk cars with cash from Facebook.
If America is going to be a greedy capitalist shithole then I’m going to be the stingiest turd in the toilet. They want to get paid for healthcare, take it out of my taxes and make it a proper utility like an actual first world country.
