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Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

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Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#121

Post by jonknee »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #54
jonknee wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me too, but it's government run... Seems like your previous statement would preclude you from liking it.

Some governments are good at running some things. The US government seems to screw up everything. I don't know why this is, but if public health care ever becomes reality, and it is anything like the DMV, or any government services in California for that matter, or VA hospitals...may [deity] help us all. I am in no way a fan of the perverse incentives created by a for-profit private health care system, but I am worri…

Singapore is the size of a city in the US, it's hard to compare the efficiencies of government programs. Medicare's enrollment alone is over 10x the size of Singapore's population.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#122

Post by gojomo »

gamble wrote: post #57
gojomo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to have taken as a given the idea that companies, like parents to children, or medieval lords to their vassals, should bear responsibility for their employees' health costs. Otherwise, the company is 'freeloading'. Yet the point of this study seems to be that employer-centric health-arrangements prevent new business formation. Let's assume new business formation is something we want to maximize. (New busines…

You're reading too much into my post. Employer-based health insurance is a terrible idea. Single-payer is IMO the only reasonable choice, but employer-based private insurance is just about the worst conceivable option. Unfortunately, it is deeply embedded. My point was that the only reason the current system hasn't completely killed new business formation is that employees and founders are able to freeload. Freeloadi…

Fair enough; with your clarification I can see what you meant.

Still, what you call 'freeloading' I see as local approximations of a more-logical system, where someone else – anyone else – pays rather than companies directly. Since it allows a necessary good thing – business formation – to happen, it looks like a step in a fairer/more-functional direction to me.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#123

Post by swaits »

PixelJ wrote: post #8

Answer: Hell yes. Self-insurance is absurdly expensive while group insurance outside of an employer or credit union is harder to find than a Republican with a conscience. The lie that "Obama-Care kills small businesses and/or jobs" is a smokescreen for the truth: Healthcare reform would free employees from indentured health care servitude and allow small businesses to hire more competitively, creating more jobs.

Please take the vitriol to /r/politics. This is HN. We shall remain civilized.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#124

Post by khafra »

dnautics wrote: post #114
EiZei wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? Forcing people to pay into a health insurance is kind of scammy - let's say that I have a genetic condition that is certain to kill me rapidly at age 30. I want to live my life to the fullest, and I'd rather not be forced to buy health insurance that protects me from things like adult onset diabetes, alzheimer's, cancer, parkinson's, etc, that I'm just no…

I'm terribly sorry for you if you don't believe that protecting the rights of minorities and corner cases is important. If you don't believe the section about minorities, then you are pulling a denial of science that is far worse than any climate science denier. There are two 'canonical' heterozygous recessive diseases that are covered in every high school biology textbook - cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia. Si…

...and the way to encourage research into SCA is to make sure most people that suffer from it are unable to pay for whatever treatment gets developed, by denying them healthcare? You've made the point that some diseases disproportionately affect minorities, but the step that gets us from "unaffordable healthcare"=>"treating more minorities" seems lacking.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#125

Post by mike_organon »

Vivtek wrote: post #65
dnautics wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? Forcing people to pay into a health insurance is kind of scammy - let's say that I have a genetic condition that is certain to kill me rapidly at age 30. I want to live my life to the fullest, and I'd rather not be forced to buy health insurance that protects me from things like adult onset diabetes, alzheimer's, cancer, parkinson's, etc, that I'm just not…

Why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? The capacity to observe reality?

You've observed that when some people get to force others to their will, that works best? And when was the free market tried consistently and failed?

We have a mixed economy in the US. Observing its failings doesn't prove that a free economy is wrong.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#126

Post by Vivtek »

mike_organon wrote: post #125
Vivtek wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't you believe in a free market for health insurance? The capacity to observe reality?

You've observed that when some people get to force others to their will, that works best? And when was the free market tried consistently and failed? We have a mixed economy in the US. Observing its failings doesn't prove that a free economy is wrong.

Our healthcare market is arguably freer than that of other industrialized countries. Our quality of health care is much, much worse, although I'll grant you that the much larger standard deviation means that the outcome is sometimes better (which is why the very rich like to come here for their healthcare). Generally, when somebody argues that the reason a given approach has failed is that it hasn't been tried hard enough, they're laughed at.

More specifically, if you've never had a child with a serious illness (such as my son with kidney disease) and you haven't tried the healthcare systems of several countries (as I have), then your opinion is worthless as well as illogical. Try comparison shopping in situations where you really fucking need it, then get back to me.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#127

Post by detst »

danssig wrote: post #90
dangrossman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not like you can just pick what to call them. An employee is an employee and a contractor is a contractor. If you want someone to work in your office 9-5 and commit their code changes to your server each day, they're an employee, and you can't call them a contractor.

I think you can actually. EDIT: What's with the downvotes? Companies do call them a contractor. It happens every day. They're are special concerns but they can certainly work 9-5, etc.

The IRS has cracked down on this practice. You can't just call someone a contractor that meets the conditions to be an employee. You can be mindful of these conditions and work around them but just calling an employee a contractor is not good enough. Even intentionally working around the IRS rules can get you in trouble.

You might get away with it but if you want to make the IRS happy, you better not call an employee a contractor if you don't want to deal with the fines, reclassification and back taxes that go with it.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#128

Post by mike_organon »

Vivtek wrote: post #126
mike_organon wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've observed that when some people get to force others to their will, that works best? And when was the free market tried consistently and failed? We have a mixed economy in the US. Observing its failings doesn't prove that a free economy is wrong.

Our healthcare market is arguably freer than that of other industrialized countries. Our quality of health care is much, much worse, although I'll grant you that the much larger standard deviation means that the outcome is sometimes better (which is why the very rich like to come here for their healthcare). Generally, when somebody argues that the reason a given approach has failed is that it hasn't been tried hard e…

> The capacity to observe reality?

That is a very strong statement. My point is you haven't proven it. I certainly sympathize with your situation, but neither that nor your evidence prove that the free market is impossible according to the laws of reality. Just don't overstate your position.

> Generally, when somebody argues that the reason a given approach has failed is that it hasn't been tried hard enough, they're laughed at.

I know - I would say the same thing about socialism.

> Our healthcare market is arguably freer than that of other industrialized countries.

It's not one dimension. Maybe the way in which the US is not free causes the problems that aren't seen in countries with more powerful rulers. We have to look deeper than one dimension.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#129

Post by PixelJ »

neilk wrote: post #29
PixelJ wrote: post #8

Answer: Hell yes. Self-insurance is absurdly expensive while group insurance outside of an employer or credit union is harder to find than a Republican with a conscience. The lie that "Obama-Care kills small businesses and/or jobs" is a smokescreen for the truth: Healthcare reform would free employees from indentured health care servitude and allow small businesses to hire more competitively, creating more jobs.

The "Republican with a conscience" line is unfair. Life would be a lot easier if all the sociopaths in the world were on one side, and all the conscientious people on the other. But it's not like that.

Granted, sorry. The problem I have with Republican rhetoric on the issue is the "I got mine" smugness of it all. The message seems to be "If you want health care, get a job like me. Problem solved." But it isn't that simple. Unemployment is real even for the able-bodied and a common consequence of being underinsured. Some jobs don't offer health care (at all) or offer inadequate, unaffordable health care (small businesses, in my experience.) Preexisting conditions can lock hard-working people out or keep them from seeking optimum employment.

I'd love to hear from even one anti-healthcare reform advocate who has ever been "outside the system" (as outlined above) and thinks that's a principled position to take.

Re: Is employer-based health insurance a barrier to entrepreneurship?

#130

Post by pg »

PixelJ wrote: post #8

Answer: Hell yes. Self-insurance is absurdly expensive while group insurance outside of an employer or credit union is harder to find than a Republican with a conscience. The lie that "Obama-Care kills small businesses and/or jobs" is a smokescreen for the truth: Healthcare reform would free employees from indentured health care servitude and allow small businesses to hire more competitively, creating more jobs.

This comment is, unfortunately, an illustration of how sites go downhill. It has 19 downvotes, including mine. So how does it have so many points? Because it has twice as many upvotes.

When badness arrives in online communities, it arrives first in forms that make people invite it right in.

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