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Politics : A US National Health Care System? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (14788)	3/19/2010 10:19:55 AM
From: Bill	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 42652

I agree with some of that, but the primary role of corporations in this is subsidizing the cost, rather than providing the insurance. Most corporations subscribe to discounted group plans offered by the big health insurance companies, i.e. United, Humana, Harvard-Pilgrim, Blue Cross, Cigna, etc. Some corporations self insure; that is, they operate their own health insurance "company" as an organization within their corporate structure. In both cases, the company subsidizes, tax free, all or a portion of each employee's health plan. In a free competitive interstate market, as pushed by Coulter, there would be no need for companies to have group plans or self insure. Individual plans would be customized and economical. Corporations could still subsidize an employee's individual insurance if they chose, but they would no longer be responsible for providing the choices for each employee.

To: Road Walker who wrote (14788)	3/23/2010 6:39:36 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 42652

The insurance companies don't care about the individual buyer. That's probably too strongly stated even for the situation we have today. If you remove the tax advantages to employer provided coverage, either by just straight removing the deduction, or by giving an equivalent deduction to individually provided care, than the market wouldn't be distorted in to its current situation. There may be some stickiness. Once people get used to a certain benefit, they don't necessarily stop wanting it just because it doesn't make nearly as much sense as it used to. So the corporate provided health care benefits will likely not go away, if you made this change (instead of Obamacare), and in fact it would probably still be a very significant market, but the individual market would likely grow a lot. --- I think the former would have a stronger effect because 1 - Many moderate income people pay no net taxes, 2 - the corporations incentives are directly affected by changing their tax payments changing the employee incentives is indirect so at least slower, and perhaps weaker, and 3 - the employees are less likely to know, understand, and act on the change)