She was paying around $60 (not a typo) a month for the two of us, but at a large company. Her new job covers 100% of her insurance, it just won’t cover mine. Wages at the old company were pretty crummy across the board, but they made up for it with their benefits package. The problem was that their benefits package seems to be standard in the industry, which is why she left.
We’re in our late twenties.
I’m sympathetic to the fact that health insurance sucks in every way, and business owners don’t avoid that. I lose all sympathy when it’s used as an excuse to provide shitty coverage to employees.
Being a business owner is like being a landlord. Part of the deal is that you take care of your employees/tenants, even if it means money out of your pocket. If you don’t or can’t, then you need to get out of the business imo. I understand that someone in that position has a million other reasons why they might disagree.
Saying you invest all profits into the business that YOU own rather than take it as salary is just doubletalk imo. It’s the same as a landlord saying “the rent just covers my mortgage payment” - well yeah, but you’ve just increased your equity in that thing you own. Its illiquid, but it’s yours.
brb, I’m gonna go cancel our employee stock options pool that adds up to almost the level of my ownership in the company.
$1,800/mo seems like an insane number for a couple in their 20s. That must be wrong.
Your logic is bad in an environment where new business formation is already at a near all time low. Lumping small business owners in with mega corporations (who to be clear are responsible for the insurance situation) is kind of screwed up.
I agree that saying ‘we reinvest the profits’ is a silly argument. I’m saying that expecting small business owners to provide significantly better than average health insurance in this environment would put most small business under and make them worth zero. It’s not employers fault that health insurance premiums go up at a billion times inflation.
We’re in an era where a small business providing any health insurance at all is fucking heroic. A lot of bigger companies are 1099’ing the majority of their workforce to avoid it. The health insurance situation is busted broken, and it’s not remotely fair to blame that on anyone who isn’t a politician or profiting off the healthcare industry.
I’m sorry but if I have to switch health insurance plans to stay viable and it makes my imaginary empoyees healthcare costs higher that’s not my fault. I didn’t make the health insurance premiums go up by 50%. If they don’t like the benefits and can get better ones somewhere else they are allowed to work elsewhere.
Your argument isn’t super different for blaming a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes. You’re hardcore blaming the victim here. We need health insurance that isn’t linked to people’s job in this country. It’s slowly approaching a point where small businesses can’t offer their employees health insurance at all because there are no options on offer that don’t cost 85%+ of what they pay employees in many cases.
I would imagine that most employees would prefer good healthcare to the ability to purchase shares of their company. Especially if the company is doing poorly and cutting expenses.
But whatever man. Do what you have to do. I just hate the framing of “we had no choice but to offer this shitty healthcare plan to our employees”
Totally.
Fair enough on the framing. But just as one added data point, we went from the #2 plan we could buy to #3, iirc. There were like 8 options with everything after #4 being pretty shitty.
Cat,
100% disagree with your view of the relationship between business and employees. It’s out of date imo, and hopefully will disappear from modern society. The American healthcare industry is one shining example. Consider Citizens United as another.
This. The problem isn’t greedy employers refusing to pay for benefits. It’s the entire for profit healthcare system. I say this as someone who literally can’t buy health insurance that makes any rational sense.
They want me to cough up 7k a year to get a plan with a 10k deductible per person and a 25k annual out of pocket max through healthcare.gov. It covers nothing until we hit the 7k either, including doctors visits and drugs. This is for a 34 year old man and a 29 year old women with no kids. Basically for us to break even on the plan we would have to have a medical event that cost 32k. We’re both fairly healthy and my net worth isn’t THAT high, so this bet was easy to pass on, and not taking it has saved me 5k a year for the last 3 years. And that’s with us going to the doctor when we needed to and getting preventative stuff done, all on our own dime.
To say that things have broken down completely is an understatement. Healthcare access isn’t the problem. Healthcare cost is the problem. Healthcare access being down is a direct result of cost not the other way around.
Basically COBRA is never worth it unless you have a pre-existing condition (and can’t get Obamacare because of COBRA).
My work paid their portion of my premium for 6 months after I left ($190) - so I stayed on it. Then it went up to $650 and I just stopped paying until I got a new job.
Man do I feel lucky. My wife works for the state so the benefits are top-notch. We pay $304/mo for our family of 3 for medical/dental/vision. This is one of the higher priced plans available to us. It’s $750 family deductible and $4000 max family OOP.
I’d be willing to give it up for M4A, though.
The firm I work for will pay 100% of my insurance but the insurance isn’t nearly as good and would probably cost me more in the long run. Unfortunately I’m not sure the firm partners know that I don’t take health benefits from the firm and I don’t think my salary reflects it so I’m going to be telling them so in the next couple of weeks when I ask for a raise. Wish me luck.
I don’t understand what you mean here.
Yea, this was pretty much my reaction entirely, just that there’s no way that the company is actually paying that. But do you mean it’s too high like there’s probably no health insurance plans that cost that much? Or it’s too high as in there’s no way an employer would pay for a plan that costs that much?
for clarity
I still don’t understand what healthcare and citizens united are meant to be examples of. I’m not trying to be difficult I just don’t get how those two things relate to your assertion that, I guess, business owners don’t have a responsibility to take care of their employees.
Why does there need to be this paternalistic relationship between employer and employees? That relationship, in my opinion, has been hugely abused by employers and is rooted in feudalism IMO.
I MUCH prefer the relationship I have with my customers where they can buy my services, or not, at their discretion… and I can turn down work if I so please without them having any recourse either.
What the hell does your relationship with your customers, as a sole proprietor, have to do with employees of a company who took a job that offered good health benefits and now are given worse health benefits? How is it paternalistic to expect people to take care of their employees?
Like, obviously I am 100% for M4A and don’t think an employer should be involved in healthcare. But, since they are, it’s a pretty shitty thing to cut expenses by giving your employees worse insurance.
Insurance is part of compensation. It’s unreasonable to expect the employer to eat a double digit compensation increase for zero additional productivity because the healthcare system is fucked. The healthcare system being fucked is something that is happening to all of us, not something that just happens to your employer.
I’m honestly to a point where if I had the power I’d make employer provided health insurance illegal. It helps drive inequality, stops people from having any kind of economic freedom, and is basically just the bait in the trap.
And usually we aren’t talking about ‘cutting expenses’. The cost went up and the benefits went down. This is a choice between keeping costs within 10% of where they were (and to be clear I mean the employer is spending more money now) and spending 50% more. 50% more on what is often the companies second or third biggest expense.
I’m sorry but this is one of those ‘do you still want there to be a company here to employ you’ spots. Good benefits are just completely unaffordable right now. For a family of four they cost something like 40-50% of the median salary of the US.
The relationship that corporations have with people and society. To minimize the influence corporations have on individuals. And as a corollary, away from government influence.
Corporate news as well.