idk man I just need to vent i guess
my employer “provides” health insurance in exchange for my time and labor, and for that great privilege they take $600 out of my paycheck every month (covers me, my wife, and our 1yo son)
that’s half our monthly mortgage payment; it’s 2/3 our monthly grocery bill
why?
“You should be grateful, peasant. That’s a good looking kid you got there. It would be a shame if she got sick. What were you saying, again, I just got a notice about a stock price increase.”
As an employer I would LOVE to be shed of this system. I have no reason to be involved in the health care of my employees, and given the state of health care in America there is literally no upside for my business. It’s all bad.
Unfortunately our system requires it, though. If I didn’t offer health care and instead just increased the base salary I wouldn’t be competitive. People would think I was trying to pull a fast-one on them, and few people in America know how to get health care on their own. It’s a mess.
Our “lords” have already told us why things are the way they are if you look at the “reasoning” behind why the Senate let the child tax credits expire.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
They literally use healthcare to chain you to a job. I have 3 coworkers that I know of off hand that have all said they literally are only working here for the health insurance…
This system can go to hell.
“People wouldn’t have an incentive to work.”
That is just their attempt at rationalization. The real reason is much simplier: money, money, money. Lobbyists, Super PACs and the donor class own our politicians. The rich pay for their political campaigns and bribe our politicians in some interesting and creative ways. For example, giving a politician a million directly is illegal, but if he writes a book and then you have the SuperPAC buy a million copies of the politicians book that is somehow legal.
Can PACs accept foreign money? Or does a politician have to run a little SPAC scam to accept that?
Well the problem is that you are viewing it from a “normal person” vantage… you need to think of your employees as indentured servants, basically slaves you don’t get to actually whip.
Once you get the proper Capitalist vantage point, you realize you can use this “benefit” to squeeze the life out of your employees, specially any of them with Chronic conditions or just a family, as they are hostages to the Health Care you provide!
If you make less than $103,000 / year (family of 3) and pay more than 9.5% of your household gross income on healthcare premiums, you will likely save thousands by using your state’s healthcare marketplace. You are likely eligible because they fixed the family glitch, now the 9.5% applies to the cost for family rather than individual coverage as before.
Although the subsidies will likely end after 2025 if dems don’t retain a majority in house/senate.
It could easily save you thousands of dollars a year… Like I’m 100% of it… Ask me how I know, lol. Please look into it. I think you have to wait til open enrollment in December? or when your healthcare renews annually. You might be able to do it immediately due to “hardship”. I don’t know the specifics of your situation but I’m pretty sure you and a lot of other people here would save a lot of money. I would talk with a healthcare_gov or your state agency agent, they get paid by the gov’t to help you through it at no cost to you. You can also get a low HDHP and get your own HSA to essentially pay no taxes for medical expenditures. I hear fidelity is good, due to no fees.
Speaking of which, is there an active financial advice community on Lemmy (like that old site that should not be named) like /c/financialplanning or something like that?
I realize I’m in /c/antiwork so it goes without saying it’d be nice if we have universal healthcare without all this baloney money being siphoned to these criminal insurance companies. Just trying to help anyone out in a similar situation. ;)
Incredibly helpful information. You don’t need to preface for a shitty situation you did not create or have the power to control. You’ve your part by providing care and empathy in the form of advice that might help some of us.
We got to use what we got for now. Can’t survive on wishes and wants.
In the US during WW2 employers couldn’t keep employees because of wage competition. This made war production extremely inefficient and slow. The War Labor Board instituted wage ceilings for critical jobs. But, they allowed employers to compete with health benefits. Employment and healthcare became intertwined.
After WW2 the War Labor Board was dissolved and wage ceilings removed. FDR, who’d proposed and implemented The New Deal and led us through WW2, proposed the Second Bill of Rights aka the Economic Bill of Rights:
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Employment
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An adequate income for food, shelter, and recreation
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Farmers’ rights to a fair income
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Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies
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Decent housing
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Adequate medical care
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Social security
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Education
This would’ve disaccociated employment and medical care. However, FDR was labeled a socialist and authoritarian, demonized. We the People bought into the propaganda.
That’s how it’s been for eighty years: The leftists propose the same platform FDR did. And, they’re told to shut up for disturbing the idiots running in fear of one bad choice or another. All that’s changed is the efficiency and effectiveness of the hegemony’s propaganda.
big government guy proposed big government solution to unintended consequence of bad decisions by big government, is confused when people don’t want more big government meddling.
the real problem here is that people forgot about what the issue was and how it happened, and years later are clamoring for government to “do something”. and extra unfortunately, at this point it may be too late for any solution other than letting government just take control of all of it; i can’t see any other way to get all the shitty government decisions and interventions rolled back.
The US incarnation of capitalism has obviously failed. I’m all for revolution. But, I’ve no doubt that the vast majority of society would willingly give up their freedom, once again. Humans have been doing the same thing for millennia.
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Insurance is extra expensive when you have a family in the US. I’m single and my monthly cost is less than $100 a month. Having a family is more expensive for everything.
But WHy dON’t YoUNg poPLE wANT tO sTarT a FaMILy?!?!
My options at my last 3 jobs have all been more than 1400/month.
It’s likely 1/3rd to 1/2 of what the insurance actually costs.
Insurance numbers in the US are all made up bullshit numbers designed to funnell money from the working class to the rich.
Mine is about the same for family coverage, and the shocking thing is that it’s pretty good relative to the market – my previous employer was about ~100/mo cheaper for an equivalent HDHP plan, but I’ve seen much, much worse.
Honestly, though, even more than the cost (having run the numbers, the tax I’d pay in a European country to cover similar services is about the same, all things considered) is the sheer level of friction that insurers inject into the healthcare system. You have to get a referral to a specialist even if you know you need to see one. You have to get insurance authorization for specialty treatments. You have to think about deductibles and out-of-pocket-maximums, and Lord help you if you start having complex medical problems around the end of the year and the maximums reset in the middle of your treatment!
We pay out of pocket for a direct primary care pediatrician for our kid (on top of his insurance, to cover any meds or emergencies) and the fact that there’s no insurance to deal with means that it’s vastly easier to get a hold of her to get a medical opinion whenever there’s a bad bump or a strange rash that needs a professional opinion. It’s shocking to see how things could be if insurance companies and PBMs and for-profit hospital networks hadn’t inserted themselves in between patients and doctors, with a sole eye towards making sure they pay out at little as humanly possible while maybe keeping patients alive in the process.
Best thing that ever happened to me was almost dying. Now all of my healthcare, everything, is taken care of.
That’s how fcked the world is.
It’s bullshit, but your employer may be covering your insurance almost completely and that 600 goes toward your family. At least that’s how my insurance works. Again still bullshit that health care costs that much and then they won’t cover shit when you need it.
that’s an interesting (and stupid) possibility that I hadn’t considered
The fact that insurance is provided through employers in the US is strange. Other products are purchased directly. Presumably there’s some advantage a sort of collective bargaining, but it doesn’t seem to work out that way for this, in part because the employees aren’t really part of the bargaining and in many places employees needs are too diverse to reach am agreement that works well for everyone.
Better solutions aren’t coming any time soon. You can possibly make some better choices though. Although, not participating in the health insurance is borderline line crazy, dental and vision plans don’t make sense for a lot of people. I would pay more for my dental plan than I pay to visit a dentist, including two annual cleanings, periodic x-rays, and infrequent work like cavities - basically the care you need to maintain tooth health. I don’t get the dental plan. You can figure out your own out of pocket costs and see if a dental plan works for you. Going to a dentist that is not in an insurance network is the way to go when doing this. Offices in network are required by the insurance company to charge exorbitant fees to out-of-network customers (the dentists don’t get the same pay from the insurance company though). So say a normal dentist charges $200 for a cleaning. A dentist in a network would be required to charge $400 or something nuts. If a patient is in network, it will say $400 on the EOB, and that the customer is responsible for $50, making it look like the customer saved $350. The insurance company only gives the dentist $150 though, so the dentist gets $200 anyway, the customer really only saved $150. The insurance company gets a bunch of money in annual fees from the employer.
You can see if it makes sense for you. Not everyone will be in the same situation, and maybe it doesn’t eork out. If you have an option for an FSA or something similar, this option is even more attractive, since all those expenses can be paid from untaxed income, whereas the money taken out of your paycheck to cover insurance is after tax I believe.
It’s a weird situation caused by WW2. Due to wage laws, higher wages couldn’t be offered. So they started to offer insurance. It caught on and became the standard.
You could probably do better buying insurance off the ACA marketplace, even without premium assistance if your job didn’t offer insurance.
I pay the same and it covers next to nothing. I’m done paying my medical bills. If they want money I’m insured figure it out with them and don’t bother me. I have insurance so my child can. If I could I’d have just them covered. It’s significantly cheaper for me not to have it
US-specific: The ACA (healthcare.gov) subsidizes healthcare insurance costs based on income. Especially in cases where you income is low this can be an awesome deal. Folks making $35k annually get stellar premium costs, deductibles, and out of pocket maximums. As income increases, the subsidies ramp down.
Unaffordable coverage: If your employer’s plan is considered unaffordable, you might be eligible for premium tax credits through the Marketplace. The affordability test considers the cost of self-only coverage and family coverage. For example, if your share of the premium for your spouse and children is more than 8.39% of your household income in 2024, their coverage might be considered unaffordable.
