Health Care : Meaningless Republican scare tactics becomes reality

[barbar]

Regardless of your political leanings, would you say that those who are employed, or I should say being paid legally to do any form of job, should have health protection, if so then this cost has to be borne directly or indirectly by the employer (wages high enough to cover this and life time cost).
Would you as a caring nation, also except that in this modern world, that we should protect (including health care) those who have no choice in their situation, primarily I am taking about children ( a child can not be held responsible for its parents sins)
So surely this cost also has to be borne by society as a whole. Again directly or indirectly paid by the employers (I include those who invest)

You employ people, not just to increase direct profit, a smaller company may employ others, solely so the Boss can have more quality time.
No point have millions, if if you do not have the time to spend it, unless of course Money is your God (which does seem to come across by many on this site)

[54885488]

Regardless of your political leanings, would you say that those who are employed, or I should say being paid legally to do any form of job, should have health protection, if so then this cost has to be borne directly or indirectly by the employer (wages high enough to cover this and life time cost).
Would you as a caring nation, also except that in this modern world, that we should protect (including health care) those who have no choice in their situation, primarily I am taking about children ( a child can not be held responsible for its parents sins)
So surely this cost also has to be borne by society as a whole. Again directly or indirectly paid by the employers (I include those who invest)

You employ people, not just to increase direct profit, a smaller company may employ others, solely so the Boss can have more quality time.
No point have millions, if if you do not have the time to spend it, unless of course Money is your God (which does seem to come across by many on this site)

You are a 100 percent right . You would think that making sure that everbody is covered would be a non political issue and also being that we are a so called christian nation we would want this for all are people . People have to remember that the poor are allready covered for medical,rich can buy there own and most companies of size should be providing it already . So what is left is working people with small companies and the working poor . And really everyone is covered in a way anyhow because when people with no insurance have large hospital bills they are usually not paid and that loss is absorbed by higher cost for ever one in the amount insurance charges for there policies .

[Brian GC]

And really everyone is covered in a way anyhow because when people with no insurance have large hospital bills they are usually not paid and that loss is absorbed by higher cost for ever one in the amount insurance charges for there policies .

You are forgetting one type of person. Not everyone without health insurance has zero net worth. Take the guy who only makes $70K a year for a family of four, has $200K of equity in his home and can’t afford the extra $1,000/mo for health insurance. He racks up a giant hospital bill. He will lose his house and everything he ever saved to pay that bill. While the person that doesn’t have a pot to pee in, but gets his health insurance provided by his employer, will walk away scott free from that same situation.

Destroying hard working people’s net worth to settle an inflated hospital bill may be just as bad as walking away from the bill.

[54885488]

Yea thats another type of person and all the more reason to have health insurance . Our family is just the wife and i and 1 daughter . I make about 42k a year working for a school district full time but have health insurance provided by the district . I could make more working for a private company but would have no guarantee of insurance . Im basicly were im at for the benefits and the stability . I will add though that if i hadent been working here for the last 15 years that stability would be in question .

[Special Ed]

Regardless of your political leanings, would you say that those who are employed, or I should say being paid legally to do any form of job, should have health protection, if so then this cost has to be borne directly or indirectly by the employer (wages high enough to cover this and life time cost).
Would you as a caring nation, also except that in this modern world, that we should protect (including health care) those who have no choice in their situation, primarily I am taking about children ( a child can not be held responsible for its parents sins)
So surely this cost also has to be borne by society as a whole. Again directly or indirectly paid by the employers (I include those who invest)

You employ people, not just to increase direct profit, a smaller company may employ others, solely so the Boss can have more quality time.
No point have millions, if if you do not have the time to spend it, unless of course Money is your God (which does seem to come across by many on this site)

As workers we do have some health protection, it's called worker's compensation. And beyond that some employers do offer health insurance for their employees as a benefit not only because they want to keep them but also because they wouldn't feel right not offering it. We here on this forum shouldn't be so eager to hold all businesses/employers in contempt simply because they have more money than us - I find many of them do want to do the right thing sometimes even when it doesn't benefit them. But at the end of the day their main concern has to be the survival of the co, because if the co dies so do the jobs.

Now as to us being a Christian nation so therefore no one should ever go without anything is indeed the ideal, but at the same time it isn't within the realm of the government's responsibility to impose that upon anyone. Because when the government does it it becomes a sort of Robin Hood, and it begins to steal from one to give to another (wealth redistribution, so to speak).

And that is something I can never agree with.

[Special Ed]

And as to those millionaires and billionaires out there, they may get their toys and quality time but they also have been and continue to give their money to worthy causes. Not because the government forces them to but because they know they'll never be able to spend all that money in their lifetimes.

[Brian GC]

Because when the government does it it becomes a sort of Robin Hood, and it begins to steal from one to give to another (wealth redistribution, so to speak).

And that is something I can never agree with.

But we already do that. The higher wage earners already pay more for the use of roads, schools, police, fire, gov employees, state/local/city services etc. Why aren’t we complaining about those as “wealth redistribution”?

[Brian GC]

Yea thats another type of person and all the more reason to have health insurance . Our family is just the wife and i and 1 daughter . I make about 42k a year working for a school district full time but have health insurance provided by the district . I could make more working for a private company but would have no guarantee of insurance . Im basicly were im at for the benefits and the stability . I will add though that if i hadent been working here for the last 15 years that stability would be in question .

I would estimate that you would have to make about $30K more in the private sector to equal what you have now. That might be an unobtainable big jump.

[Pete838]

If extra employees don't bring in money, they should not have been hired to begin with.

You seem to be blaming the firing of unprofitable employees on the government, when it is really just bad business.

They bring in money, but not enough money to cover the increased cost of employing them. Health insurance costs at my company are about $700 per employee, per month.
Take the restaurant industry, specifically the wait staff. Restaurants run slim margins, and wait staff earn about $3 per hour plus tips. Including WC, taxes, and wages it costs less than $175 per week to employ a waitress full time. Now add health insurance and you've doubled the cost of employing that person.
The owner is left with a few choices.
1) He can raise prices. Your $7 hamburger just became $12.50 so you decide to eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
2) He can trim costs elsewhere. Your fresh ground chuck burger just became a flash frozen patty that came out of a case of 200 and he gives you frozen fries instead of handcut. You hate it and eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
3) Avoid the expensive new mandate. Cut employee hours. Instead of 40+ hours a week they now get 29. The employees survive with less but they survive. Restaurant stays in business. OR cut the workforce from 60 to 48. Twelve employees lose their jobs but the other 48 get to work full time and maybe some OT.

You seem to think that every employee creates enough economic activity to pay for a massive new mandated expense that makes said employee a lot more expensive to employ. A lot of work simply does not create enough revenue to significantly increase the cost of employing someone and not create serious consequences.

[Special Ed]

I know what you're getting at, Brian, but it's not gonna work....

All those services you just mentioned are usually paid by a combo of property, gas and sales taxes. The only tax I would consider even remotely like "redistribution" is the property tax. The other two is based purely on what and how much of that "what" you buy, meaning, the only reason the rich may pay more taxes on the latter two is because they buy more and it may even be more expensive than what you or I may be able to afford to buy.

Am I right?

[Special Ed]

They bring in money, but not enough money to cover the increased cost of employing them. Health insurance costs at my company are about $700 per employee, per month.
Take the restaurant industry, specifically the wait staff. Restaurants run slim margins, and wait staff earn about $3 per hour plus tips. Including WC, taxes, and wages it costs less than $175 per week to employ a waitress full time. Now add health insurance and you've doubled the cost of employing that person.
The owner is left with a few choices.
1) He can raise prices. Your $7 hamburger just became $12.50 so you decide to eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
2) He can trim costs elsewhere. Your fresh ground chuck burger just became a flash frozen patty that came out of a case of 200 and he gives you frozen fries instead of handcut. You hate it and eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
3) Avoid the expensive new mandate. Cut employee hours. Instead of 40+ hours a week they now get 29. The employees survive with less but they survive. Restaurant stays in business. OR cut the workforce from 60 to 48. Twelve employees lose their jobs but the other 48 get to work full time and maybe some OT.

You seem to think that every employee creates enough economic activity to pay for a massive new mandated expense that makes said employee a lot more expensive to employ. A lot of work simply does not create enough revenue to significantly increase the cost of employing someone and not create serious consequences.

Exactly what I was trying to say, Pete, only you were far more articulate and you used a lot more words.

[54885488]

They bring in money, but not enough money to cover the increased cost of employing them. Health insurance costs at my company are about $700 per employee, per month.
Take the restaurant industry, specifically the wait staff. Restaurants run slim margins, and wait staff earn about $3 per hour plus tips. Including WC, taxes, and wages it costs less than $175 per week to employ a waitress full time. Now add health insurance and you've doubled the cost of employing that person.
The owner is left with a few choices. 1) He can raise prices. Your $7 hamburger just became $12.50 so you decide to eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
2) He can trim costs elsewhere. Your fresh ground chuck burger just became a flash frozen patty that came out of a case of 200 and he gives you frozen fries instead of handcut. You hate it and eat somewhere else. He goes out of business and everyone loses their job.
3) Avoid the expensive new mandate. Cut employee hours. Instead of 40+ hours a week they now get 29. The employees survive with less but they survive. Restaurant stays in business. OR cut the workforce from 60 to 48. Twelve employees lose their jobs but the other 48 get to work full time and maybe some OT.

You seem to think that every employee creates enough economic activity to pay for a massive new mandated expense that makes said employee a lot more expensive to employ. A lot of work simply does not create enough revenue to significantly increase the cost of employing someone and not create serious consequences.

Wow i did not know that there were states that allowed tips to be counted towards the minimum wage and thus employers were alloyed to pay a minimum minimum wage . In california this is not allowed . A employer has to pay minimum wage and tips are seperate.

[54885488]

That waitress you describe how on earth does that person even survive on that !