I responded to an article asking about the advantages and disadvantages of national health care over at Center for Faith in Politics. The article references the fact that the average cost of health insurance in this country now exceeds the money earned by a full-time minimum wage worker and was written by Thomas Martin. Note that this cost is only for the insurance. It still doesn't include the co-pays and deductables involved in actually getting some health care services. And that insurance cost is even before taxes. Granted, the tax rate at that low income level isn't much, but there is still the cut for social security and most places in this country have sales taxes so that presumably some part of the minimum wage earner's income would be taken by taxes.
The initial comment I posted drew an energetic response from Dick Clark, clearly a libertarian. For whatever reason, I've now responded to two of his comments with two more comments of my own. If you have an interest in some of my thoughts on national health care coverage you could check it out. Be warned, he uses "a priori" arguments and I admit I resorted to pejoratives such as "theoretical." I don't know why I engage in such exchanges, but sometimes I do.
UPDATE 9/20/2005: A third round of exchanges between Mr. Clark and myself has occurred. Sometimes it is hard to resist a good argument. For all that I completely disagree with him, I will grant that he has generally been quite civil, more so than I sometimes, I'm afraid.
Posted by JoKeR at September 20, 2005 03:37 AM | TrackBackJoKeR ---
As a small business owner, this issue creates significant conflict in me. Our h/c premiums (for our 80 employees) are rising at an annual rate of ca. 20%. This is the 8th or 9th consecutive year that this has occurred. The short-term result of this is that we simply don't hire as many new employees as we need. H/c costs are in my little world creating a very real drag on the economy.
We've worked hard to protect our employees from increases in co-pays. They do pay a share of the premium cost, but it's modest, and we try to absorb most of the increase in rates. How? By shopping the plan each year.
The cost of said shopping is in itself significant, since it absorbs a significant amount of admin time each spring. New plan, new paperwork, many meetings. I know that it bothers the employees that each year they get a new h/c card --- it bothers ME as an employee, too.
The free market from my perspective has failed in health care. I cannot believe that a government-managed health care system would be anything but one more bloated inefficient bureaucracy. So what's the solution?
I don't have anything close to a satisfactory answer. My partner and I frequently ask ourselves how much longer we can afford to remain in business.
Some of our local business peers have pushed all of the h/c costs onto the employee. Yes, the employer manages "the group", but the total premium cost is carried by the employee. For historical and philosophical reasons, we've chosen not to go there. This IS the libertarian solution: "if employees carry more of the expense, they will self-manage it better, i.e. will use it less."
Right. As if anyone chooses to be sick, or to go the hospital. This argument simply makes me see red, since it is so blatantly discriminatory.
Grrr.
Posted by: Ebeneezer Moot on September 20, 2005 08:59 AMI remember seeing an article months ago about a factory being sited in Canada rather than in the USA despite offers of huge tax breaks and other considerations. One of the primary reasons given is that they wouldn't have to worry about health insurance. The taxes of the employees and the company would pay for the health coverage but the company wouldn't incur the administrative overhead you mention and they wouldn't have to negotiate with the workers for how much coverage should be paid for by the company. Our private insurance based health care system is anti-competitive in the world market.
Posted by: JoKeR on September 20, 2005 02:06 PMIn that model, taxes become a "fixed" cost, even though they may rise over time. H/c costs held privately are a significant variable cost, and one for which you can no longer adequately plan.
What other expense item increases at a rate of 20+% per year?
Posted by: Ebeneezer Moot on September 21, 2005 08:24 AMYes, J, I am a capitalist. However, I am far from greedy.
I've been spending a lot of time considering Luke 12, in particular the Parable of the Barns.
Posted by: Ebeneezer Moot on September 21, 2005 08:28 AM