There was a time in the USA not that long ago when people paid for their own medical care. If they couldn't pay for a doctor, they either went into debt or they had to rely on the generosity of the medical professionals.

Over time, some bright person came up with the idea of medical insurance: I'll collect a few dollars from lot's of different people and put it into a pool, to be used to cover the medical costs of people in the pool as it is needed. Since statistically speaking not everyone gets sick all at the same time, the funds collected from a bunch of people can be used to pay for the expenses of a few. For managing this service, I will collect a fee, and I will invest the money that is in the pool so as to maximize both my profitability and the amount of money available in the pool. And since I represent a lot of patients, I will also have the ability to negotiate for better prices of medical care for my clients. Patients lay out small amounts of money to cover their very large medical expenses. Doctors get guaranteed business fed to them by the insurance company. The insurance company gets a cut of whatever they collect from patients.

Good idea.

Then someone got a bright idea to start offering to pay for a portion of the cost of medical insurance as an emplyment benefit. Especially in industries where compensation was either very competitive or highly regulated, it made sense for companies to offer medical coverage (or a portion thereof) as a relatively low-cost benefit, a perk for employment.

Note that word... "BENEFIT". As in "a luxury item", something offered to sweeten a deal.

As time went on, more and more people asked for this particular benefit until most companies were offering it as a matter of course. Anyone employed by a company of 10 people or more just naturally came to expect this benefit as part of their employment package. If you worked, you expected to get medical benefits.

This continued until now... until suddenly this benefit, this perk, this luxury item, is suddenly being seen as a RIGHT that everyone should have as a matter of law.

When did something that started out as a luxury item, a benefit, become a right that the government has to guarantee us under the law?

Elliot

twinkiedooter

Yeah, I was wondering that same thing myself, Wolverine. But there is a downside now to all this "freebie crap" that employers have to dangle in front of employees to keep them employed. Now companies are not offering such cheap health insurance premiums that the employees have to pay. The last employer I worked for that offered health insurance benefits to their employees had to jack up their portion of what the employee contributed monthly three times in one year!! The rates of the insurance companies are disgraceful and usury. "Oh the costs are skyrocketing at the doctor's offices and hospitals" is their excuse. No, it's the pure greed of the health insurance companies that is driving the premiums sky high. No other reason to raise the rates three times in one year.

Also, why are the people who do have the health insurance offered by their companies (even if they don't have to pay the full premium but just part of it) constantly going to the doctor's? My fellow employees thought nothing of going to their doctor for a cold and getting antibiotics for a cold! That's another reason why costs are too high. Employee abuse pure and simple. Not preventative medicine, but seeing the doctor for stupid stuff and then happily getting prescriptions for "depression" while they are there and getting hooked on those pills as the doctor thought they were depressed since they had a cold. The doctors are really willing accomplices as well in this web of deceit. They are nothing more than pill pushers getting kickbacks from Big Pharma for pushing certain drugs and getting more people hooked on them.

Companies are now not offering health insurance as "perks, benefits, whatever" as they cannot frankly afford to do so. Some companies have drastically cut back any benefits to their employees as the company cannot afford to keep outlaying perks or benefits any longer.

andrewc24301

And this is why I seldom go to the doctor, and I would NEVER WILLINGLY or KNOWLINGLY take any type of medication that messes with my head. Such as for depression. I see people all over the place, who "have a bad life" (or so they say), they go to the doctor, and get hooked on these pills that are supposed to put you in a good mood. Suddenly, they have prescription bills several hundred dollars per month.

People need to learn how to manage their problems without the aid of mind altering drugs, including alchohol.

No mother's little helper for me, no thank you!

tomder55

When FDR instituted mandatory wage and price controls ,that meant the employer's only ability to compete for employees was by creating non-controlled benefits .
That is how the current system was born .October 26, 1943, the IRS ruled that employers could continue to pay health insurance premiums in pre-tax dollars. That ruling legitimized and encouraged the practice.


give me and all my American coworkers the cash equivalent to the benefit and open up the options of choices like I have in auto-insurance ,homeowner's insurance,life insurance .

That will in turn create more competition in the health insurance market place and prices are sure to drop.

I don't need the full menu that includes coverage for a massage or infirtility treatment but perhaps I'd prefer preventive supplements or holistic medicine covered instead.I don't need to be covered for nicotine dependency. That should be my choice .An ala-carte selection of benefits would better suit everyone's needs instead of 'universal coverage ' .I think insurance should be portable no matter who I worked for. If I can make a better deal in another State then why can't I have access to the plan the insurance company provides to employers and employess from that State ?

ETWolverine

Well, there is some legitimacy to the claims made by the insurance companies about increased costs. Costs actually have gone up, due in part to covering the uninsured and in part to the effects of frivolous lawsuits (both in terms of malpractice premiums and the unnecessary tests doctors do to cover their butts). Costs have gone up something like 56% in the past 10 years.

On the other hand, there is indeed a greed factor. Insurance companies will get away with charging as much as the market will bear. Why not? That's how capitalism works. But they can only get away with it for as long as we let them. The response to high prices is no create a new private insurance company that will charge less, thus creating price competition. Competition lowers prices. Competition is the answer to high prices and poor service. Government run options DECREASE competition, and are counterproductive to lowering prices and increasing services.

Here we disagree completely. If I am paying for medical insurance, then I demand medical coverage. If I work for my insurance coverage (even if my employer pays the entire amount, it is still being paid for by labor) then I demand to be covered for anything... even if it's just the sniffles.

Let's also not lose site of the fact that preventive care is usually more cost effective than care after the fact. Getting taken care of for the sniffles and a sore throat today may very well prevent bronchitis tomorrow, which would be more costly to cure.

And as a sufferer of climical depression and consumer of Zoloft and Wellbutrin, I can tell from your post that you clearly have no idea what depression is, what it does to the human body and mind and how debilitating the illness is. It isn't "stupid stuff" and nobody suffering from depression WANTS to be suffering from it. I can assure you of that. Anti-depressants are a very important tool of the medical industry. That's not to say that they aren't abused by some... but then again, cough medicine can be abused. So can Ibuprofen. That doesn't mean that they aren't effective when used appropriately. In my particular case, I can tell you that without the anti-depressant meds I take, I would have died, pure and simple. Your statement on this point is rather simplistic and lacks an understanding of how the chemistry of the human body works.

True. Which again brings me back to my original question. The employees of those companies seem to be saying that having those benefits is a right, and if their companies won't give them what is rightfully theirs, then they should be getting it from the government. When did benefits offered as perks become a right to be guaranteed by the government?

ETWolverine

Again this shows a simplistic understanding of clinical depression and how it effects the human body. You seem to think that those suffering from depression should "just snap out of it" as if there were nothing wrong with them in the first place. You clearly have never suffered from the effects of clinical depression, and don't know anything about it. Yet you speak with such authority on a subject you know nothing about.

Elliot

ETWolverine

Geico auto insurance (and I presume others as well) is now offering a "name your own price" deal, wherein you tell them what your budget is and they build you a policy that fits the budget by eliminating anything that isn't absolutely necessary to your needs.

Why can't insurance companies do the same thing? Want basic care for a family of 4 that includes well visits to pediatricians, pharmaceutical coverage, and catastrophic care? Your kids are under 3 and don't need dental yet, but you and your wife do? Don't care about the fertility coverage or the massage therapy but you need mental health coverage (after all, you're married with two kids... who wouldn't need mental health coverage)? We'll build you a policy that gives you what you need, and nothing more. If you want more, we can add stuff later, but for now, you pay for what you need and nothing else.

Let the companies pay the employees HALF of what they are paying for my health care, plus my contribution, directly to me, and let me buy my own health care on an as-needed basis, just like auto insurance or homeowners insurance.

The idea is sound, Tom.

Elliot

andrewc24301

Well, Elliot, that's a strong statement to make considering you know absolutley nothing about me, you know not what I have been through, and my trials in life, and how I have dealt with them.

Am I depressed or not? I don't know, I refuse to go to a doctor to find out, or he/she would only shove pills down my throat. I do know I have had many of the textbook symptoms many times in my life due to various life expirences I have had.

I've pretty much had people kick the crap out of me my entire life. And I'm not here playing the violin, I'm making a point. I've had my share of days standing over bridge contemplating a jump, along with other such thoughts. Those who know me say I have a lot of undiagnosed medical issues, I just feel in some cases, the cure is worse than the desease.

Everybody handles problems a different way. As I've grown older though, Im learning to respect myself. Very few people see things my way, but the bible says that's the way it will be. I'm a firm believer in Gods plan for me. I don't know what that plan is, but if he wanted me to die that day, he would have had a gust of wind come and blow me over the ledge. Instead, at that very moment, he instilled a peace in me that no pill could ever do.

In fact, I see a lot of pill commercials where suicidal thoughts are a possible side effect.

Anyway, not going to go any further with that. I call a truce here. I respectfully ask that you not claim to know me or what I've been through, or what I know. I did marry a clinically depressed woman, and together, the two of us are working through it. She has been off her medication for 3 years now.....

You know what's funny... she hasn't had a suicidal thought in.... 3 years....
All the doctors and shrinks meant nothing, until we opened the bible and started living for God.

food for thought....

andrewc24301

And you can look through my archives and see the post where I blow off steam now and then regarding my wife. I won't say it's easy living with someone in this condition. But we are still married.

But I've been married to her for six years, 3 of which she was medicated, three of which she was not. The first year off her medication was rough, but the last two were better then the first three.

I thank God for that.

I do know depression is a complicated matter, but I don't beleive the answer is in a pill, or drug. I don't know where the answer is. But I beleive it has a lot to do with hard love and solid friends.

Skell

I've always found it a little strange that in the US an employer is 'expected' to contribute to an employees health insurance... I'm sure this must have paid a leading role in your suggestion that it is now a right.