Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 2013: Your Company Health Insurance Becomes Taxable Income

Why would such a likable guy like Obama and friends do this? They want to get to single payer - they control your life when they control your health care.

They need to make all current health care practices economically
too onerous and expensive. They need to collapse the current system inorder to build theirs.

Its all very simple but sinister.

My employer pays 87%, I pay 13% of my health ins. premiums. They say their portion amounts to roughly $470.00 per week per employee. If I opt out, I only receive $37.00 per week additional in my payroll check.

If I must pay tax on the value of the plan, then I should only be on the hook for the $37.00 right?

If you opt out, than you have no health insurance value to be added to your tax liability. But then you have no health insurance either. Can you buy it cheaper than what the company does - especially for family coverage?

That's my my point. How can they have it both ways?
If I want the company plan, I should be covered and taxed on the $37.00.
On the other hand, if it's worth $470.00 a week, and I don't want it, shouldn't I get the $470.00 a week?
I'm just asking, what's it really worth?

You're right. That was the origin of it. The reason it continued beyond that point is what I said above.

No, he's exactly right. Any product exposed to the free market will be priced reasonably. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, you could be adequately covered for medical issues for $50.00 or $100.00 per year.

Lots of things were different back then...what did cars cost??? Care to compare today's level of medical technology to automotive technology - rhetorical question. Today's medicine far exceeds the advancements in automotive technology. Want a cure for cancer?? Think genomics - medicine and treatments customized to an individual's genome.

Item #1: How do you 'shop around' with a singler payer system??

Item #2: Employer group health insurance has a distinct advantage in that it pools risk. If you convert to wholly individual policies with a large variability in coverages ADVERSE SELECTION is almost guaranteed - the healthy purchase limited benefit plans and the sick purchase higher coverage plans. Unfortunately this leads to a DEATH SPIRAL which keeps pushing up premiums for the sickest until they cannot afford them and then you're back to government care.

All insurance, automobile, homeowners, health, life, etc. is based on pooling risk among participants willing to pay a relatively small amount to protect themselves from a catastrophic loss. Make no mistake, there is an element of socialism in all insurance - it's just with car or home insurance if you don't have it you're SOL - picture cars with plastic over the windows, headlights duct taped on and the door secured with a bungee strap. Doesn't happen with medical situations - you get treated regardless of your ability to pay.

Why look at insurance to be the competitive ballpark?? Shouldn't it be the doctors and hospitals?? Most people don't want to go to the cheapest doctor or hospital - often someone wants to go to the most expensive provider and have the cheapest insurance pay for everything. That's not a calculation that works out. Don't like how it is, everyone is part or the problem and part of the solution - doctors, hospitals, consumers, insurance and employers. My .02.

No there isn't. Insurance, the real kind, is designed to profit the owners of the insurance company by providing a desirable service. The service to customers is to pay for catastrophic and unexpected medical expenses above a certain amount, should one ever occur. It's purpose is not to provide healthcare by pooling everyone's funds and redistributing them according to need. The latter is a sure formula for perpetually escalating costs far in excess of market prices. The former is not.

And how does the catastrophic expense get funded - the person pays in $3,000 for example and gets $80,000 in benefits - it's funded by all of the others paying in more than they use. Whether the benefit starts at $50, $500 or $5000 it's still pooled risk. It's the fundamental element of ANY insurance. People think that there is some other formula to get more out than you pay in...there isn't.

True. There is no such thing as insurance for health care.

Not currently, no, and we have government interference to blame for that state of affairs.

It's insurance in case the unexpected happens, and you receive payment only after paying a large deductible. Natural market forces are at work under those circumstances operating against prices rising beyond what the market will bear. The system you favor lacks exposure to such forces, thus prices rise out of control, because there's a disconnect between the customer and real costs, thus no one is incentivized to hold costs down.

catastrophic coverage will no longer be available under Ocare...you must purchast the full coverage bells and whistles, abortion contraception, drug rehab, and lots of other stuff you don't want or need, or it isn't a qaulified plan and you pay the fine.

For the sake of accuracy then - you DO agree that catastrophic coverage IS the pooling of dollars for the redistribution of them based on whomever experiences a catastrophic loss?

Another nuance - there's a difference between explaining and favoring. Whether you are talking about essential benefits (as referenced by Steve No) or catastrophic coverage, the more levels of coverage available, the greater risk of adverse selection.

Next, what is catastrophic coverage - is it $1000, $5000, $15000?? As for the unexpected component - where does the person fall that requires $20,000 per year in treatment/medication - given that it's a chronic condition as opposed to unexpected.

Lastly, you hold no belief that a specific level of preventive care can avoid certain 'train wreck' conditions and actually keep the overall cost down correct? There is still the employer validity that supporting a healthy workforce results in greater productivity and fewer sick days.

I do agree that with the consumer having minimal exposure today, there is no incentive to shop for value. Consumers need a stake in the game such that they shop for a doctor, a hospital to have a baby in the same way that they shop for a car or a TV.

That's my point.

No.

TRH,

Sorry but you're wrong on this one The "unexpected medical expenses" are risks calculated in the same manner as with any other insurance . The funds are pooled and redistributed according to "need" in the form of a claim.

There's no difference. For profit is the name of the game whether it's medical insurance, catastrophic insurance, homeowners, car, boat, atv, pet ... you pick.

Exactly. That's my point. The purpose isn't redistribution, but profit by means of providing a desired service to customers. That's capitalism, not socialism. Pooling costs is not the purpose of insurance in a truly free market economy. Distributing risk is part of it, but not the purpose. When the main function of "insurance" becomes, by law, pooling costs (i.e., socialism), you strip the market from the process, thus costs go sky high.

some one has to cover the 51% of Americans that are recieving gubment aid!

Wasn't that bill (No one realy read to closely) about 1900-2000 pages. Sure to be lots of bad news for normsl tsxpayers to be hidden in there.