WTF?????? Some employers consider ending health coverage

[BSAM]

Hoooray! We're moving closer and closer to the destruction of the USA medical cartel and toward National Health Care! This is long overdue in this country!

Take a look at your value system. Don't you think that if we can engage in military adventurism all over the globe, that we should most certainly provide care for our citizens?

 

[stock777]

Quote from jd7419:

Sorry but sometimes you can't price shop in the heat of the moment. My wife had an emergency c-section, she could have died, I wasn' thinking about the cost of the procedure.

no problem, as long as you're paying for it, i could care less. but you really dont get it do you. if the medical mafia was under control, your wife would not have to worry about being robbed under emergency conditions.

thats ok, you have lots of tunnel vision company.

 

[Eight]

Quote from BSAM:

Hoooray! We're moving closer and closer to the destruction of the USA medical cartel and toward National Health Care! This is long overdue in this country!

Take a look at your value system. Don't you think that if we can engage in military adventurism all over the globe, that we should most certainly provide care for our citizens?

I think that if we nationalize health care that dissenters will have an impediment to their freedom. There already is history to support the idea that anti-war people mistreat veterans in the VA system...

There are two traditions with regard to workers. One is that an employee is almost a family member, the other is that they are a commodity. The former seems to hold sway in Europe, the latter in the US. A far better answer to the solution of who pays for healthcare is found in encouraging the former philosophy in the areas of healthcare and all treatment towards workers by employers. Trying to legislate it into existence really sucks though. I've worked for employers that treated me like a commodity, they had to provide health insurance so they got the cheapest, worst stuff they could find. Their health insurance was an impediment to my sanity and health really. I turned away from the US Medical care almost entirely and I'm doing great. I found that I can cure conditions that the Medical Establishment cannot!!

I really hate the idea that I have to pay in one form or another for healthcare for individuals that will not do the due diligence required to stay healthy. They, in turn, support industries that are bad for people's health like growers that produce our meat devoid of Omega3 and many other things essential to health, the fast food industry, liquor industry, etc ad infinitum ad nauseaum...

 

[Arnie]

Quote from ChkitOut:

I don't think ANY employer should offer health coverage. It screws up the natural demand/supply pricing dynamics.

I could not agree more. Its amazing the powers that be don't see this. All Obama did was take a broken system and put it on steroids.

 

[peilthetraveler]

Quote from athlonmank8:

sick employees die off?! you're messed up. I more than welcome you to that group.

Everybody dies. Either the sick employees die off or the healthy unemployed live on the street, starving, trying to stay alive by eatting garbage which in turn makes them sick and they die.

I guess thats what you want...the healthy people to die. You're messed up!

 

[Max E.]

Surely you didnt believe Obamacare was going to be good for the people who actually work for a living did you?

Quote from misterno:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Surve...45.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=3&asset=&ccode

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Nearly one of every 10 midsized or big employers expects to stop offering health coverage to workers once federal insurance exchanges start in 2014, according to a new survey from a large benefits consultant.

Towers Watson also found in a survey completed last month that an additional 20 percent of the companies are unsure about what they will do.

Another big benefits consultant, Mercer, found in a June survey of large and smaller employers that 8 percent are either "likely" or "very likely" to end health benefits once the exchanges start.

Employer-sponsored health insurance has long been the backbone of the nation's health insurance system. But the studies suggest that some employers, especially retailers or those offering low wages, feel they will be better off paying fines and taxes than continuing to provide benefits that eat up a growing portion of their budget every year.

The exchanges, which were devised under the health care overhaul, may offer an alternative for their workers. These exchanges aim to provide a marketplace for people to buy insurance that can be subsidized by the government based on income levels.

A large majority of employers in both studies said they expect to continue offering benefits once the exchanges start. But former insurance executive Bob Laszewski said he was surprised that as many as 8 or 9 percent of companies already expect to drop coverage a couple of years before the exchanges start.

Such a move comes with potential payroll-tax headaches and could subject firms to fines. It also would give their employees a steep compensation cut if companies don't raise pay in exchange for ending coverage.

"Dropping coverage is going to be very difficult for these (companies) to do," said Laszewski, a consultant who was not involved with the studies.

Towers Watson's Randall Abbott said the survey results should be seen as a snapshot of how companies are thinking now. They can't be viewed as a final decision because there are still many unresolved variables. No one knows what the exchanges will be like or whether consumers will accept them, and companies may change their thinking once they learn more about the overhaul.

The health care overhaul also faces court challenges, and President Obama is up for re-election next year, two more variables that could shape what happens in 2014.

 

[nutmeg]

Hmnnn.. I wonder.

If you hire an employee and he work off the books, pay him cash.

Now if you like his work you put him on the books because he needs health care, say he's getting married, thinking about a family, all legit concerns.

Now if no one offers health care. pffttt. It's one less headache. This may lead to a larger underground economy.

This may even have an effect on workmans comp insurance.

Say you run an autobody shop, hire a guy under the table, he drops a wrench on his foot & breaks his big toe. He gets his freebie treatment at the ER and thats the end of it. No claims, case closed.

 

[nutmeg]

I also wonder what the health care costs are of female vs male.

People don't wake up and decide to the doctors, men don't.

I wonder if the demographics of african american women share of health care costs are vs other groups.

I wonder what the health care costs of employed people vs unemployed.

Gunshot wounds & childbirth are pretty expensive and I'm sure are out of proportion to the general population vs african american community. Not that I care in particular but this may have crossed the mind of thr insurance industry lobby.

The ins cos may want the gov't to pick up this tab (gunshots and excessive uninsured pregnancies).

 

[377OHMS]

My employer pays for medical coverage wtih Kaiser. I have to contribute a small amount for the premiums.

I don't use it...

Instead I drive over to Cedars Sinai and pay cash.

My primary physician is a private doctor in Bethesda, Maryland that accepts no insurance. I fly over there for checkups and routine stuff. If I'm sick and don't feel like the long flight I just walk into Cedars and have them supervised by my primary.

Kaiser is that bad.

I just turn the mandatory plan coverage down to the mininum option and eat my contribution to the premiums. I would be very happy if my employer dropped coverage altogether. I would definitely be one of those who refuses to participate in Obamacare regardless of any penalty. I-will-not-play-nice.