A "hidden" health insurance burden we pay

[SHRED]

I am talking about the public sector.

There is quite a bit of talk (there needs to be more) about how a public health insurance program (Medicare for all) would provide savings to the private business sector by lifting the responsibility of providing costly private insurance plans for their employees.

Now let's look at the public sector where I work.
The cost burden for health insurance plans to the cities, counties, states, and the federal sectors is enormous. The employees pay percentages of these costs based on their negotiated contracts but the public employer...i.e..the taxpayers, pick up the rest of the cost for these overpriced plans such as Blue Cross, etc..

A universal health insurance system with shared cost over the entire working-class both private and public would relieve this privatized burden shared by the employers and employees both private and public.
It would be a paycheck deduction like FICA and thus remove businesses and public entities from being in the health insurance provider racket, which costs them dearly. Your coverage would not be tied to the workplace.
Like Canada you get a card that you take in for dental, vision, and health care.

I am wondering if the average tax payer has thought this through?
I am wondering if the average tax payer realizes they are paying through the nose for Blue Cross, etc.. for the public employee?


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[Lint Head]

1. Insurance companies are nothing more than banks. They do not provide health care.

They are just middle men that are making a profit from misery and need to be eliminated. Insurance used to be for nothing more than property and goods. Then they got the big idea that there was profit in sickness.

[Lugnut]

8. They're parasites.

Health insurance companies add nothing of value to the whole health care process.

[tsuki]

2. Here's another "hidden".

As a small business owner, my prices had to be based, in part, on the following:

Provided health insurance for employees - average about $700. a month.

Workers' Comp health insurance - 15% of my employee's wages.

Vehicle health insurance - around $200 a year per business vehicle.

Future health insurance - 1.45% of employees' wages.

Four policies, and one policy that the politicians are trying to cancel.

In only one year did I pay more taxes than insurance.

[SHRED]

3. Wow

A single-payer public insurance system would save you so much.

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[tsuki]

6. Yep, and as I point out to my clients, it would save THEM big time.

This is not an abstraction, it is a HARD MONEY COST to my business. Disclaimer: Am retired now...or maybe just tired.

[Shagbark Hickory]

4. Part of the reason so many public sector employees are getting laid off

nt

[The Wizard]

5. Republican legislators

will do everything, legal and ethical standards aside, to prevent national health care. It cuts into the bribe money they get from the insurance lobby.

[applegrove]

7. We don't get dental and vision in Ontario. Just medical. Still our universal system is much

cheaper than your public/private one.

[SHRED]

9. I got my info from...

...a vacation my wife and I took to the Montreal and Quebec City area.

Obama had just got elected and people were wanting to talk politics.
This led to health insurance discussions also. One lady we met at a B&B detailed her public insurance plan.
I guess Ontario's plan is different than Quebec's.

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[applegrove]

10. Yeah.

[LWolf]

11. My employer pays as much as my previous mortgage

for my health insurance. That gets me a 1500 deductible, I pay 100% for any prescriptions, and once I've met my $1500 deductible, I'll pay 25% a co-pay for care.

Which is why I don't use the health insurance I've got unless it's damned severe.

Repeated pay cuts have left me without any resources behind me to make that possible.

I used my health insurance to see a doctor for shingles last month.

I paid $175 for the office visit and $387 for the prescriptions.

That came out of my food and gas budget for October. So...I ate a lot of very cheap, unhealthy food last month, and I was reduced to asking my son to provide gas money for my bi-weekly transports of my grandson and food to feed him when it's my turn to take care of him.

Two days before payday, I was scrounging change for 2 more gallons of gas to get me to work; I guess I'm lucky the gas station took it.