Because $1200 is less than $10,500 (the figure that I saw most companies pay per employee). The employee is still getting his health care. I recommended to the owner of the company I work that he cover employees with $10,000 catastrophic plans only. Then he could put $10K or $20K in a savings account and pay the deductible in the case where one or two employees rack up big medical bills. Nobody at the company has racked up big bills in the past 10 years.
The employee is getting less health care, which is an effective salary cut. Higher deductible means you pay more out of pocket, even if you're covered for the massive things. It's still a downgrade to have your lower-deductible health insurance cut and only be given a salary bump sufficient for a higher-deductible plan, so people will still react negatively to that. Again, what you're claiming companies can now do is something companies could have done for years. Except now there's an added $1200 cost to doing it.
He's not getting less health care. Companies could have not offered insurance all along, but then the employee would not be getting health insurance. For $1200, the employee IS getting health insurance. It's just the sucky govt. variety.
I haven't seen any provision for government offering health care themselves, outside of an expansion for people who already qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. For middle class wage-earners, they still have to buy insurance from the private sector. Also, if you think the insurance they're getting "from the government" will be "sucky," you can't also argue that it's not lesser health care than currently provided by the employer.
My health insurance "quality" has declined each of the past three years. The company (about 35 employees) has seen its premiums increase by $35K each year, and there's a point where they had to offer bigger deductible policies with higher co-pays, etc., just to be able to offer anything at all. This year, they're offering a $10K deductible policy and a medical savings account. That's typical of the businesses that employ 80% of the workforce.
Yeah, there's that pesky Constitution that stands in the way of your argument that our Government gets to define our rights. Other than that tattered shred of toilet paper, you're on solid ground.
A solid arguement for complete government control of the healthcare industry. In a free market the healthcare monopoly has us by the balls and profits obscenely by reducing benefits while increasing prices up to 35% per year. They do it because they can, and their greed overrules their conscience. Denny, you are your own worst enemy. Socialized healthcare is affordable to all.
Why do you know so much about the medical bills of your fellow employees? That's supposedly confidential personal information protected by federal law.
In a free market without regulations, health care was inexpensive, or free for those who couldn't afford to pay. There were no monopolistic health care companies - those are an invention of government, just like Socialized health care is. Where medicine is socialized, it bleeds the people for taxes and the taxes keep having to go up because it costs more and more.
As usual, you're fondly remembering things which never occurred. http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2012/04/25/how-mad-cow-disease-affects-humans/
A good government has responsibility to ensure certain rights for all funded by taxation, like education, police protection, freedom to use drugs, and health care. They are rights, not privileges.
