User: SubWuffr

Cost sharing pools

On: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

But since health insurance has become so fixated in employee-benefits "cost sharing pools" does that really make it more affordable?

Or does it drive up the price because health insurers can then charge the "corporate rate" instead of rates individuals could afford?

3. Tax employer health benefits as income

On: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

If you recieve your health insurance as part of a benefits package from your employer, its fair market value should be taxed as income.

The reason is to try to get employers OUT of the healthcare providing business, and to encourage more private purchase, which will drive prices down.

Employment and Healthcare should be disconnected

On: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

Yea, part of the problem is that there's this expectation that employers provide healthcare as a "benefit" and as such it gets so expensive that nobody can afford to buy it privately as an individual (like car insurance).

Employment and Healthcare should be disconnected.

A job with 'health benefits'

On: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

Here in the US, the overwhelming majority of people get their health insurance through their employers as benefits. You lose your job, you lose your health insurance, it's so tied to employment here.

And because so much health insurance is purchased by employers as a business expense, the price tends to be higher than if purchased privately.

Tax healthcare benefits as income?

On: Massachusetts Makes Health Insurance Mandatory

There's an expensive restaurant in my town that only business travelers seem to go to. And because seemingly 90% of its clientele is business people with expense accounts, they keep the prices high. Nobody seems to go there on their own dime.

Has health insurance become like that? Because mainly businesses are buying it for thier employees as a benefit, the price (groupe rate) is artificially high?

What if something were done to DISCOURAGE businesses from offering health care as benefits? What if the fair value of those benefits were TAXED AS INCOME?

If so, would businesses start to drop coverage as a benefit, individuals would have to start buying it on their own (like car insurance) and the prices would drop?