Quote:
Originally Posted by guyy
Unlike the rest of us, you have a direct line on the general will, yes?
Your post takes the "sober realist/reformist" stance, but what is so realistic about employer based plans in this economy? Old industrial capital (GM, Ford) wants out of company welfare schemes, and the New Economy firms (*$, Walmart) never had them in the first place. Employer based schemes aren't going to get off the ground unless workers have more power vis-a-vis capital. However, if workers did have more power, given the experiences of the past 30 years, why would they settle for the same broken arrangements? Health care is one area where gentle reform is completely utopian.
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guyy..I have a line to the same data as everyone else.
But I'm playing the pub scenario and the "sober (and realistic) stance" is that somewhere around 2 out of every 3 persons in the US w/health insurance receive such insurance through employer-based programs (I'm not verifying for accuracy since I would not have that capability at a pub)...and, by most measures, the vast majority of those millions of insured Americans are satisfied with the level and quality of care provided...the complaint is with the cost as the costs borne by employees are rising faster than wages/salaries.
So the short-term solution for me is NOT to replace employer-based plans (which does not have widespread support), but rather to contain the cost to employees. And this can be accomplished to some degree through more risk pooling, tax incentives to employers, and at the more extreme, price ceilings set at by state regulation.
In the longer term, universal, single payer, is a better option..but you cant get there from here without significantly disrupting the current system and most likely, increasing costs.