Sunday, July 06, 2014

Two randomish thoughts

1. Employer-provided health care isn't a freebie; it's part of your employment package, your compensation, in short, your salary. Employers give you insurance instead of enough money to buy insurance because it's cheaper for them to do it that way (they get the bulk discount), and because they get tax breaks for doing so. Consider: when you go looking for a job, you prefer one with health benefits over one without, right? You'll probably even accept a smaller salary if the health benefits are there, because otherwise you have to pay for your insurance directly. But your benefits package isn't a present from a generous boss who gets to pick what he gives you and what he won't ... well, of course he does get to pick the program, but it's part of your compensation, just a part that he gets to pick. Under the ACA businesses don't have to offer health insurance at all, but if they do there are minimum standards they have to meet. (Unless they're Christians, apparently.) If they don't want to meet those standards, they don't have to offer the benefit (and the government will help the working poor get insurance their employers won't, or can't, offer).  But then they don't get the tax breaks. Simple.

2. The Court said that having the government offer the ... disputed ... services was a better idea than having the company do it. Sounds to me like single payer might be the best way out of the whole quagmire.

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