patrick.net

You are asking that right questions, good on you. It's obviously a complex situation, so as a problem solver, the first thing I look to do is decomplexify. Sometimes, posing too many questions across the board, keeps it complex. I feel the simplest problem we could solve here, is separating employment and wages (income taxes), from healthcare in general, but specifically from health insurance. It's none of your employers business to be involved with your personal health insurance, and we could do The Economy great justice by separating the two.

Why are employers providing health insurance in lieu of wages, in the first place? (Because the tax code makes it much more beneficial for them)

YesYNot says

Collective bargaining allows people who participate in private health insurance plans to pay much less for the same service as individuals. If you are in the group that pays less, this may feel just fine to you, but if you are in the group that pays more, this is an obvious injustice.

Do you feel the same way about people getting paid more for their work because of collective bargaining?

Not to mention, I'd rather American business focus on whatever it is they do for commerce, rather than waste their precious time being involved in the health insurance of their employees.

Now Big Business/ Ownership Class/ Corporations would likely fight this, because they are better off with the current situation instead of my solution. So long as Labor is stuck having to show up for work everyday, less they lose their healthcare, that is a tremendous advantage for The Corporation to hold over the heads of Labor.

If companies spent that tax deductible Health Insurance money on dividend paying equities for their employees instead, then the employees would have much more bargaining power, relative to this current situation.

I have a friend that has worked at the same small business for ~13 years, and his boss forces him to take health insurance yet provides no 401k. This friend has never been to the doctor in those 13 years, so his boss has wasted 65k on tax deductions that provide his employee zero benefit. They don't even cover any of the 5k+ he's spent at the dentist over those 13 years. My friend wants to leave his job, but he struggles with the fact that all that money vanishes the day he leaves.

Imagine how much money he would have in a 401k, even if it was poorly managed, had he dumped 500$ a month into equities over the past 13 years. 250k+?

Labor really takes a reaming, again

errc says

So long as Labor is stuck having to show up for work everyday, less they lose their healthcare, that is a tremendous advantage for The Corporation to hold over the heads of Labor.

Ahem, are you saying that they are not already "stuck having to show up for work everyday less they lose their paycheck"?

Healthcare is something that should be provided by the government.

I am all for a parallel private system, but the current system creates a permanent corporate serfdom.

A single-payer system will encourage entrepreneurship.

Look for Morality in University Rhetoric Classes!

Experience is that if Legal and Accounting personnel are making $$ off it, thats lining their pockets rather nicely.

Peter P says

A single-payer system will encourage entrepreneurship.

Slippery slope. A single payer system in Germany will, but they also have their legal system designed to have not have overhanded effects.

Straw Man says

Do you feel the same way about people getting paid more for their work because of collective bargaining?

It's a good question, though a bit off topic. I don't know that collective bargaining by employees has the same impact on workers in other industries. In fact, I believe that it drives up wages in other industries, but there are secondary effects these days with globalization, so I don't know that anybody really knows what the net benefit or harm is. In the case of collective bargaining on behalf of some consumers, I am arguing that it hurts other consumers. What I'm arguing is that it is immoral in a sense to distort the market in a way that benefits some and makes health care too expensive for others.

Collective bargaining directly harms employers, and complete free market people are against it for that reason. They are also against any trade barriers for the same reason. But I'm not in the free market solves all ills club. I just think that consumers of health care deserve a fair and free market on the consumer side if they have no right to healthcare.

What is your opinion on the original question?

YesYNot says

I don't know that collective bargaining by employees has the same impact on workers in other industries.

Collective bargaining by government employees harms taxpayers.

Peter P says

A single-payer system will encourage entrepreneurship.

I agree that it is the best option, and that it will encourage entrepreneurship.

errc says

So long as Labor is stuck having to show up for work everyday, less they lose their healthcare, that is a tremendous advantage for The Corporation to hold over the heads of Labor.

I completely agree. It's different from just needing a paycheck. They need to be part of a group to get reasonable health care if they do in fact need health care. This is why a national system would encourage entrepreneurship.

YesYNot says

What is your opinion on the original question?

Your argument is similar to saying that if someone is buying a sack of apples cheaper because they are members of Costco it somehow raises price of apples for somebody else who can't or chooses not to pay for Costco membership. In reality there is no such correlation: same apples outside Costco may cost more, but this is not BECAUSE of Costco.

In short, your argument is bogus and morality has nothing to do with collective bargaining.

Straw Man says

Collective bargaining by government employees harms taxpayers.

I'd generally agree.
Do you believe in Ayn Rand's philosophy of the free market? Do you have any thought on the OP?

Straw Man says

Your argument is similar to saying that if someone is buying a sack of apples cheaper because they are members of Costco it somehow raises price of apples for somebody else who can't pay for Costco membership.

It is pretty similar to the argument against collective bargaining. The problem in health care is exacerbated by the lack of price transparency. This is perhaps why the price difference between apples at Costco and apples elsewhere is not a factor of 7.

If 70% of the country was a member of Costco, and Costco apples cost $2 per pound and non-Costco apples cost $14 per pound, the analogy would be better. And, if that were the case, I would say that there was a big problem. The amount of apples consumed by Costco members (at more than 50% of the market) would dramatically impact the prices for non-Costco members, and I'd say it was immoral, especially if people with pre-existing conditions were prevented from buying Costco memberships. If the Costco members were buying the apples with pre-tax dollars, it would just compound the problem.

YesYNot says

Straw Man says

Your argument is similar to saying that if someone is buying a sack of apples cheaper because they are members of Costco it somehow raises price of apples for somebody else who can't pay for Costco membership.

It is pretty similar to the argument against collective bargaining. The problem in health care is exacerbated by the lack of price transparency. This is perhaps why the price difference between apples at Costco and apples elsewhere is not a factor of 7.

If 70% of the country was a member of Costco, and Costco apples cost $2 per pound and non-Costco apples cost $14 per pound, the analogy would be better. And, if that were the case, I would say that there was a big problem. The amount of apples consumed by Costco members (at more than 50% of the market) would dramatically impact the prices for non-Costco members, and I'd say it was immoral, especially i...

Yeah, lets pile on as much BS as possible to muddy waters and draw the connection which simply doesn't exist.

Peter P says

the current system creates a permanent corporate serfdom.

A single-payer system will encourage entrepreneurship.

I think this is the biggest dirty secret of the US Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbyist in DC by far. They represent business interests, and it is simply not in the interest of business to let employees have portable insurance coverage, nor to encourage competition by entrepreneurs.

Hardly anyone outside DC seems to even know that the Chamber of Commerce even exists, much less what its goals are.

it is simply not in the interest of business to let employees have portable insurance coverage, nor to encourage competition by entrepreneurs.

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Nor for Labor to reap the returns of its toils. It's one or the other. Either working shlebs send every last cent they have after rent, off to Worthless Private Health Insurance companies, or they could have that money in a 401k with preferential tax treatment, and participate in Capital accretion, and reinvest their dividends and stand a chance out from the working class damnation.

Let Them Eat Health Insurance Premiums!

YesYNot says

Let's assume for this argument that people don't have the right to health care, but they do have a right to a fair and free market.

You cannot have the right to health care itself, but you can have property rights to access health care resources. This is not a mere technical difference. It is a fundamental conceptual difference. For example, you cannot have the right to a cure for AIDS because one does not exist. A right is, by definition, a freedom guaranteed by the state. Health care is not a freedom.

However, if the cost of health care is socialized then it becomes a public resource, and you can have a right to a share of that resource. This is what most people actually mean when they say that health care should be a right. It's a subtle, but extremely important difference. They really mean that equitable access to the shared resources of health care should be a property right.

There are advantages to turning health care into a public resource.
1. Economies of scale
2. Streamlining processes
3. Elimination of administrative waste
4. Elimination of perverse incentives
5. Reduce care costs by emphasizing prevention
6. Elimination of rent seeking, non-productive profit taking like insurance
7. Greater transparency and accountability resulting in quicker and greater improvements

So what are the advantages to keeping our current system of a Rentier Toll Bridge where one must first pay the troll (private health insurer) his toll before passage to meet thier demand with supply (healthcare)?

Dan8267 says

ey really mean that equitable access to the shared resources of health care should be a property right.

Yes. By right to health care, I'm referring to a right to get access to a doctor and the currently accepted standard of care for their problem.

My belief is that the path to Universal health care if there is one is through the Democrats, and that single payer universal care would be the best solution to this issue. On the off chance that the house and senate can agree on a bill to dismantle Obamacare and bring us back closer to an everybody for themselves system, I'm trying to figure out what people should be demanding from such a system.

On the off chance that the house and senate can agree on a bill to dismantle Obamacare and bring us back closer to an everybody for themselves system, I'm trying to figure out what people should be demanding from such a system.

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The right to not participate