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Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

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Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#161

Post by yummyfajitas »

Anechoic wrote: post #120
yummyfajitas wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#2 is irrelevant in MA. MA already has Obama/Romneycare. I.e., they already have the ability to force an insurance company (more precisely, other people who purchase insurance) to subsidize their care with or without an employer.

#2 is irrelevant in MA. MA already has Obama/Romneycare. It's not quite that simple. One, the plans offered through the MA Connector may not be as inexpensive as plans negotiated by an employer, so you may wind up paying more for the same coverage. There's alao the issue of finding a plan with doctors in the same network, you may find yourself paying a little more if you have a favorite doctor treating you for a pre-…

There is no gap because COBRA covers you (costs go up precisely 1%) until the next open enrollment. As for "open enrollment", this just means you need to start your business in July.

Anechoic is right - anyone claiming they can't start a business in MA due to employer sponsored healthcare is just making excuses.

See also "I'm a fatass because I don't have time to exercise", "I have no girlfriend because all the girls I don't ask out would say no anway", "I'm underpaid because all other companies would pay me the same, not that I actually interviewed."

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#162

Post by ams6110 »

eli wrote: post #81
thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

From the article: But what about the risk of, you’re afraid to leave your job and be an entrepreneur because that’s where your health insurance is? I don't know how many people fit that description, but it is certainly more than zero.

There are SOO many things to be afraid of if you're starting a business, I really don't think that health insurance (or especially other things the article mentioned, e.g. retirement savings, medicare, social security) is a showstopper for most people. In starting your own business, you are risking the ability to put food on the table and pay the rent. Health insurance has got to be less scary than that.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#163

Post by arbuge »

Evbn wrote: post #100
arbuge wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I second this. Just went down with appendicitis - doctors call this a "routine" surgery. Well, the bill came to $50,000+...

Was it worth the money?

I hope so - haven't fully recovered yet. Doctors do a good job of selling this as "minor" and "routine".

Anyways, after insurance the bill is likely going to be around $5k. Still pretty nasty, but one order of magnitude does make a difference.

ps. I cannot for the life of me fathom how hospitals in the USA justify charges of $4-$8k/night for hospital stays. To be clear, this is just for the room. The surgery and anaesthesia costs are billed separately. 90% of the bill is the hospital stay.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#164

Post by arbuge »

zecho wrote: post #91
arbuge wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No... Those folks had no income tax. Income tax came later. The 90% bracket was extremely high when it existed and snared very few people.

Could you elaborate? The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and from what I can tell the top marginal rate was in the 90s until 1964... http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

The 3 billionaires mentioned were pre-1913. Morgan might have had a little bit of overlap.

The 90% tax rate was indeed in effect but very few people fell victim to it: http://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth...

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#165

Post by arbuge »

jacoblyles wrote: post #145
krakensden wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, appendicitis can kill you, so theoretically, it's always worth the money. On the other hand, when clever people notice this and decide to get in on that infinite, inelastic demand, the rest of society tends to get grumpy. Hence the ceaseless political trench warfare over how to pay for health care since the Johnson administration.

In a free economy, a company would notice that, say, 2% of people get appendicitis in their lifetimes and that it costs $50,000 to treat - an expected cost of $1,000. Then they would offer you lifetime appendix insurance for $1,500. Unfortunately there are tens of thousands of pages of regulation preventing that from happening.

The "it can't happen to me" syndrome would likely stop anyone buying anything so specialized as appendicitis insurance. If you tried selling that to me 10 days ago I would have shrugged it off as unnecessary.

But something does need to give or at least should. The system is so broken and involves such huge amounts of money that whoever figures out even a small piece of this will become a billionaire many times over. I'm open to ideas if you need a cofounder ;)

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#166

Post by yareally »

kgrin wrote: post #132
yummyfajitas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Providing health insurance to employees is a massive tax dodge. Providing schools to their children (or auto insurance, etc) is not. If employer-sponsored housing was a similar tax dodge, you'd see employers bidding for employees with salary + rent free living.

Interestingly enough, according to one post I read just today, that's exactly what Chinese factory employers are doing: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/18/foxconn_facto...

It actually goes back much farther than that. The Krupp family provided their workers with free housing, schools, health care, etc. At the same time, it bound the employees to their employer for life, more or less.

Krupp established the Generalregulativ as the firm’s basic constitution. The company was a sole proprietorship, inherited by primogeniture, with strict control of workers. Krupp demanded a loyalty oath, required workers to obtain written permission from their foremen when they needed to use the toilet and issued proclamations telling his workers not to concern themselves with national politics. In return, Krupp provided social services that were unusually liberal for the era, including "colonies" with parks, schools and recreation grounds - while the widows' and orphans' and other benefit schemes insured the men and their families in case of illness or death. Essen became a large company town and Krupp became a de facto state within a state, with "Kruppianer" as loyal to the company and the Krupp family as to the nation and the Hohenzollern family. Krupp’s paternalist strategy was adoped by Bismarck as government policy, as a preventive against the Social Democratics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp#Overview

Similarly, in coal mines across the US for years, they would do the same thing. They would pay the workers in "script" so they could not earn real money and thus, escape the life of being a coal miner. That was what the famous song by Tennessee Ernie Ford was about (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Tons).

Many other industries, such as trucks/shipping in the UK also paid employees in script, thus forcing them to only buy from the company stores. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#167

Post by wmblaettler »

viviantan wrote: post #95
thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

I'm totally with you about loving Jon Stewart and I'm all for removing barriers for those inclined towards entrepreneurship. But the concept of creating safety nets to encourage more entrepreneurship strikes me as paradoxical. To an extent, the inherent risks that come with starting a new business is a good thing -- it forces would-be-entrepreneurs to assess critically what they would gain or lose before taking the p…

Well put. My thoughts were similar that if the safety net were to allow for excessively risky behavior (as in unsustainable, non-profitable, or predatory business schemes) with repeated failure and limited negative side effects, it could be a net drain on the overall economy.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#168

Post by TallGuyShort »

ams6110 wrote: post #160
goggles99 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It just baffles me that health coverage is so tied to where you work. What if you could only send your kids to the schools that your employer selected, or eat at the restaurants the your company had a deal with? It's just weird. I don't know if government provided insurance is the solution, but employer provided just doesn't make sense as the only solution. Does it baffle you that the school location for your kids i…

My first job with a large consulting firm offered exactly your last option. You had benefit "flex dollars" on top of your salary and you could shop among the plans they offered or you could take the cash and go buy your own (or not). Of course due to group rates their plans were cheaper than what you could buy as an individual, but not by a lot, and if you were a single young male (i.e. didn't need maternity coverage…

In theory I agree with you, but there would need to be a more even playing field. I used to buy my own insurance, and I would get screwed every time. There was always some little loophole they gave me as to why the visit I pre-approved with ended up not being coverable. Am I supposed to have the resources to try beat them in court myself? No, so I switched companies and told them why. This happened twice. Now I'm on my employers plan with a successful company. Everything gets covered no-questions-asked... The argument against social medicine is inevitable injustice and slowness of beaurocracy, but what difference is an insurance company that doesn't really care if they have my business or not? If they're small enough to care, can you trust them with big financial commitments?

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#169

Post by chubbard »

Great Scott! It's just crazy enough it might just work!

I've always felt that America's psyche is evolving us to a "Everybody's a CEO." mentality. With the introduction of 401K we upped the risk taking, driving white collar workers into consulting away from full time employment with benefits of incorporating, tax benefits of corporations, preferential tax treatment of capital gains vs salaries. These are all incentives to create your own corporation over being a salaried employee, but they all involve taking more risk. We are rewarding risk more and more while devaluing safety. Not passing judgement per se, but making an observation that America might be interested in this if they understood it. And that America might need this anyway because we are pushing more people into accepting the risk without their choice. (see 401K as an example).

Another side benefit to this is it might drive up competition for workers because more people might be interested in working for smaller companies because benefits are more equalized. Driving competition for workers means higher salaries too on a whole as they compete for the talent. That's the real societal benefit.

Now, if I could just figure out a way to pay myself entirely in dividends over a salary I think they might give me an honorary 1%'er membership. :-)

But on the other hand. All I know is that it won't be that much fun when everyone is doing it. It never is.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#170

Post by zrail »

ams6110 wrote: post #162
eli wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: But what about the risk of, you’re afraid to leave your job and be an entrepreneur because that’s where your health insurance is? I don't know how many people fit that description, but it is certainly more than zero.

There are SOO many things to be afraid of if you're starting a business, I really don't think that health insurance (or especially other things the article mentioned, e.g. retirement savings, medicare, social security) is a showstopper for most people . In starting your own business, you are risking the ability to put food on the table and pay the rent. Health insurance has got to be less scary than that.

I'm not sure about most people. Two points of anecdata: I fell and broke my back almost a year ago. If I had been self employed I would be liable for tens of thousands of dollars. Second: I have a friend who was forced out of the consulting game because of a serious medical issue that private insurance would have cost too much to cover.

I can't generalize from two data points but I can say that for me and my friend, lack of a safety net has absolutely been the show stopper.

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