Why not end employer-based health insurance?

With all the debate about how to fix our outrageously expensive and complicated medical system in the US, and all the issues coming up from huge numbers of unemployed people without health care to the possibility of employers dictating what will be covered by their employees' insurance, why does it seem that only a handful of kooks are calling for a separation of employment and health insurance? It seems to me to be the best of the various proposed solutions, but the only ones getting much traction are Obamacare vs full-on universal coverage vs, uh, not-Obamacare.

Would treating health insurance more like homeowners' insurance or car insurance be financially unfeasible? Are there lobbyists standing in the way of such a change? Are people actually happy with the two or three (if any) choices for health insurance that their employer provides?

If we had shit for brains collectively we would demand single payer. Countries that have it spend less and live longer, but we, collectively, have such an insane paranoia about somehow giving up our freedom to "socialized" medicine, that collectively, we would rather get lousier care, pay more for it and not live as long as the countries that have gone single payer. As a country, on this issue, we're stupid.

I'm glad I don't suffer from this kind of collectivist thinking.

Like I said we're stupid on this issue.

I support single payer, but whether we were to go that route or simply extend the mandate to all, decoupling coverage from employment is a good idea, both for employee and employer.

Most employer based plans lack the scale required to adequately spread risk, so you get very expensive premiums as a result. Or you get inadequate coverage. I suspect that you could give everybody a one time raise in the amount of 50% of the annual premium, and just about everybody could find adequate coverage and more in a universal marketplace.

"Coming up"? Try "occurring for the past several decades."

Ask for a show of hands in the RR and see how many people would be if they lost their employer handout and had to pay for individual policies the way the rest of us do.

That said, I agree. The for-profits should have been mandated to treat health insurance the same way they did their other types of insurance or not been allowed into the market.

That ship has not only sailed, it's foundered.

And that's why we don't, 'cause we're not shit-for-brains collectivists. Walked right into that one, didn'tcha!

You're exactly what I was talking about: willing to pay more and get less in the name avoiding "SOCIALISM". Shit for brains? That's an insult to shit. Walked right into that one didn't ya?

Mind translating that into English?

About the same proportion of people that would if they suddenly lost, oh.... 50% of their mutually contracted-upon wage for no good reason either. So, not sure what you're trying to prove here. People don't like having their compensation chopped out for no good reason? Gee, what a stunning conclusion you've reached, Madame Curie.

That would be one of the best things we could do.

Oh, you translated it! Good boy! Here's the answer: Ab-so-fucking-lutely. I want to get what I pay for. More importantly, though, I want freedom of choice, which is what I get when I pay for the services and coverage that I, as an individual, decide are important to me. Absolutely right. You can have your collective. Hope you enjoy that.

Anything you are given above what I am given must be a handout.

Nothing but a shell game with these folks.

I'm sure so sure that if employers took their side of the premiums and gave it as cash to their employees, it would all be ever so much better. Mostly.

And yet Prufrock raised the question, but you give him a pass. Why is that?

It's a curious thing that you're unable to see the distinction between what Prufrock says and the answers he gets and what you say and the answers you get.

You've answered Prufrock by not answering Prufrock.

Your answer to me confirms what I've suspected all along: "There's no need for healthcare reform" really means "I've got mine and fuck everybody else."

That's because you're clinically stupid and always desire to read whatever batshit insane bullshit runs through your mind into whatever anyone else says.

Well, at one time, employer-provided health care was cheaper than individual health care, IIRC.

And if you go on-line and compare pricing, (at least the ones I was checking into for a friend) the prices with deductibles are pretty high. Granted it's been a few years since I did the search for the friend, so numbers could have changed.

Can you provide comparative numbers for the rest of us who have either not found the correct sites or have a shit load of things that keep getting in the way of a decent search - or at least some links to sites to give us said information - so that perhaps a more interesting and informed debate can take place?

Last year I would have killed to get a better carrier. This year, I'm not sure yet - new carrier, but the problem is now the way my doctor is forced to do business to care for me. Not liking that I have to go somewhere else to get lab work done instead of allowing the staff to draw the blood in the office the day I am there ....

As if "single-payer" automatically mean "single-choice" if that were true you might have an argument (maybe not since the thought of eliminating NHS in the U.K. is their political third rail).

Single payer is most efficient. Supplemented by private plans for those that want it.

But we won't do that, as it's been clearly demonstrated to work and the medical lobby is completely against it for that reason.

This one is making the rounds: Why do we have higher costs? Our providers charge us more. The US subsidizes the rest of the world by bearing the brunt of the R&D costs, and even denying us the global market in things like basic drugs because of powerful interest groups. As usual, the rich get richer, we get the shaft, but OH NOES - NOT SOCIALISM!

So ultimately, we pay because so many of you can't figure out a balance sheet, and prefer ideology to reality. In other words, as a country we are really fucking dumb.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/

As a nation, we've been "as a collective" the most stupid country on Earth and have just been getting dumber since ~1910. The only thing the majority of us cling to which puts us one step upward from the rest of civilization, if you can call it that, is that we Americans REFUSE to entrust our safety to anyone except our individual selves, including our increasingly tyrannical state.

Now, having said that, my employer healthcare plans SUCK! I decided to just buy straight from Aetna after reviewing all my choices. Under the circumstances, I don't mind paying a bit more for ALOT MORE in coverage. What I'd personally like to see is, rather than a government mandate, I'd like to see Uncle Sam start its own PREMIUM plans and force the insurers to compete for the lowest prices while providing the best product. But I'll never take my insurance from my job. Fuck, you get laid off or something and you're tossed a COBRA book with a year extension in employer benefits... For a 300% mark-up from what you were paying. I've been there, done that and I don't trust any motherfucker employer to be looking out for me.

Don't stop at state lines.

You got that right. I shouldn't have to call and ask what does IDK, this charge of 80 bucks stand for? All I see in front of it is code 354.21. What does 354.21 stand for? ... 30 minutes of being on hold, beating around the bush, and listening to elevator music: ah that's an XYZ evaluation and blood screening?

what? I didn't have any blood drawn or tests run on me this month!! Then it turns out several days later that the office assistant at my doctor's clinic, billed the wrong code to my insurer. Not Aetna's fault, but if I had everything in black in white in front of me, it would have saved a lot of time, and prevented a chugging of Frangelico and few extra Xanax tablets to calm me down.

It's better to wallow in our own filth than to have the government solve a problem. That's the conservative way!

Your chronic "I'll call you stupid so I don't have to refute you" ploy is the reason you're ignoring Prufrock? Hokay.

"At one time"? Have you tried pricing individual insurance coverage - particularly for our age cohort?

As Demi points out, Americans are subsidizing the rest of the world's healthcare, and individual Americans are subsidizing those of you with employer-provided coverage.

Didn't we just have a couple threads about how having different ideas doesn't make someone an idiot? But here, it sounds like most people's response to my question about why shouldn't we separate employment from health insurance is "single payer is the best and anyone who disagrees is stupid". So it looks to me like the answer is actually more along the lines of people have already made up their minds about how we should reform health care and screw any other ideas that might come up.

Who is your constituency for divorcing healthcare from employment while retaining the current system otherwise?

I don't think the current system would be retained for very long after divorcing the two, not if insurance companies had to really compete for customers and provide more individualized plans, be more transparent in their pricing, etc.