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To: mishedlo who wrote (51904)	2/1/2006 10:52:18 AM
From: GraceZ	Respond to of 110194

You make it sound as if the employee is better off in the end. Labor groups pushed extensively to expand coverage and benefits over the last 50 years so obviously people do think they are better off with more and better health coverage. Plus, they are better off from a cash perspective compared to someone like me who has had to write a check to cover the entire cost rise of that insurance. My premium is twice what it was in 1999. Frankly, I prefer to know exactly what I'm spending my income on. The worst aspect of employer covered plans is that employees tend to think that they aren't paying that cost and they don't know the price, so they have little incentive to trade off for a less expensive plan, something many would do if they were writing a check every month. Plus, it sometimes locks them in jobs that they hate. Health coverage has risen for many reasons. An older work force requires more care, the standards of care have risen with procedures and therapies added continuously year after year as well monetary inflation. The person who was covered by an employer plan had a certain amount of protection against these rising costs but compensation from the employer's view is always calculated as a total of the cash and non-cash amounts, the employee has a cash value to the employer. The cost of employer compensation in the form of health benefits rose only 4.5% in 2005 because employers finally were able to push some of the increase off on employees, but in 2003 they rose 6.3 and 6.9 in 2004. This is the primary reason that cash compensation growth has lagged the performance of the economy since 2000.