I have to guess that It would be truly disturbing to calculate the hidden costs of employer based

[WCGreen]

health care distribution.

The first question would be, given the current climate in this country, how many potential entrepreneurs are stifled by having to remain in a position in which they are under utilized just because a family member is sick and they can't risk the possible elimination of health insurance?

How many people are simply under employed because of health insurance concerns?

How many workers are trapped in dead end jobs because of health care coverage concerns?

This isn't really a free market system if there exists such an impediment to the optimum distribution of skills and talent.

Those are just three examples I can think of before my day of toil begins. I'm sure there are far more.

[abluelady]

1. You Are Definitely Right

Just had a conversation with a teacher who was talking about the number of bad teachers she sees who say, outright, they are only staying in teaching for health insurance. Tey would love to be somewhere else. Such irony--they don't teach our children and we pay for their health insurance.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. There's a name for those situations...

I call it slavery...

[Kitty Herder]

3. +1

[HughMoran]

4. Yep, a family plan at my little company is $36000/yr

The same plan at my former (large) company was about $12000/year (note, these are total cost, not my cost). If we had the buying power that will be provided by the exchanges in the current HCR bills, we would be MUCH more competitive with the large companies. This reform is critical for entrepreneurial companies like mine.

[Bonhomme Richard]

5. Exactly. I wouldn't have started my business 10 years ago if...

my wife's employer didn't provide health insurance. That's a fact because I wouldn't have risked the kids health. How do you put a price tag on potential new entrepreneurs? Well, I have been told that what I developed in my business has saved the taxpayers millions of dollars and it also benefits the environment. You can't figure that kind of stuff with a formula.

[WCGreen]

7. My wife had to shop for a job based on availability of a comprehensive health

care coverage for me since I have a pre-existing condition.

For years she was under-employed.

Thankfully, she is now gainfully and, for her, enjoyably employed.

[Greyhound]

6. That is a truly disturbing road, and probably why nobody with a microphone won't go there.

We had a revolution and we didn't even see it. The insurance industry has taken over this nation, whether you are a doctor, a mechanic, a hair stylist, a SBO, or even a large company, the insurance industry dictates how you will run your business, whom you will hire, to whom you will sell, and whether or not you will be allowed to continue to exist. All regardless of how good or in demand you are.

[WCGreen]

9. There is far too much control over the workforce by

Insurance companies...

[hfojvt]

8. most of what you would consider "dead end jobs"

do not have good health insurance. On the other hand, it seems to me that people who are on the "good job train" can very easily move from one car to another. Their last good job with good health insurance always qualifies them for their next good job with good health insurance. In fact, I would say that my problem in the last twenty years is that every time I try to climb on the good job train, the job I am trying for is taking by one of those dickwads who is just moving from one car to another on the train.

[csziggy]

10. I pretty much shut down my business because we could not get insurance at any price

I was turned down in 1992 for "pre-existing conditions" even though my doctor said I was perfectly healthy. That same year I was injured and had to pay out of pocket to have my shoulder rebuilt. In 2001, my husband got a job in town just in time for me to blow out a knee - his insurance has paid for several major operations in the last nine years.

My brother in law had a profitable and growing custom cabinet business but could not get health insurance to cover his children. So he closed his business and went to work at a shitty job at Disney World - he worked there until he died. He had to - once he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, he had to keep working or lose his coverage. He worked until the week before he died.

So just in my family, there are two small businesses that were closed due to the inability to get health insurance. Mine - a small horse breeding and boarding operation, was a "Mom & Pop" business that only employed me and my husband. My BIL's business was growing - he had one employee and was thinking of adding a few more, but he could not get insurance at an affordable rate.

[galileoreloaded]

11. How about the hidden cost of a 20% decrease in general business activity

other than bank profits propping up GDP??

Of course, this was all done by the FED doubling their balance sheet by buying trillions in bad debt and mortgages, ergo your savings is backed by bad debts and current/future default.

See, health insurance is merely a symptom, not really the disease. That is why it is getting Tylenol and not surgury. The surgery we need will surely kill the patient.

That is the point of the exercise.

[WCGreen]

14. Of course I am not implying that if there had been comprehensive health care

would have made everything Hunky Dory...

Nor would I ever.

The Fed's action blessed by every major politician and government official manipulating interest rates to favor debt and investing at the expense of workers and therefore cconsumers over the past years or so is, of course, one of the major contributions to our present pediment.

I wonder how you were able to discern that I implied underemployment in the workforce due to the arcane practice of rewarded employees with health care benefits caused the massive downturn in the world's economy...

[galileoreloaded]

17. I apologise for implying anything about your post..

merely stating that we are kind of worried about the wrong stuff.

[glitch]

12. Corruption always kills innovation.

Well, Corruption eventually kills everything but Innovation is its arch enemy.

[dysfunctional press]

13. how many employers are stifled from adding workers due to the healthcare/workman's comp costs?

single-payer would be a HUGH economic boon.

[WCGreen]

15. Yep.

Just imagine the good the human resource departments across the land if they were freed from the single task of saving money by constantly shopping benefits and paring down coverage.

[slipslidingaway]

16. knr - thanks for adding another important angle. n/t