Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Sanlmar View Post
Company provided health care was a way to attract employees during an era of wage controls in the US.

In high tech it is still used as a powerful benefit. It’s free

From what I can tell even little startups and VC ops are offering free health care.

The trend is free and astounds me but there you have it.

Haves and have nots.
If you don't provide healthcare nowadays (at least at skilled jobs), employees look down on your company as shit, and don't want to work there.

What really needs to happen is an outlawing of group plans (as I mentioned), and then these companies can still provide healthcare by simply reimbursing the employee (and their family) for the premiums they'll pay.

Tons of bloat in those premiums currently paid for group plans, but companies feel trapped and are forced to pay it.

I worked for a small company from 1998-2003. Just like what I suggested above, they were simply reimbursing employees for their individual plans. This worked fine until they hired some salesmen with preexisting health conditions, and suddenly the only way to insure these guys was to buy a small group plan. The owner of the company used to come into my office in the evening and complain how the insurance companies were robbing him blind with the premiums.
The healthcare problem is so overwhelming I can’t wrap my head around the macroeconomics.

I’m in the fitness industry and try to capture insurance wellness dollars where I can. The insurers are so fucked up and really don’t care about your future wellness. You will be on another plan next year. It’s about the next quarter. They aren’t investing in you.

I go to Florida a lot. I don’t really have a circle of friends there and needed something to do. So I got involved in a classic car club. They rent garage spaces in a prefab warehouse kinda building. Restore and tinker with cars... sit around and swap lies. Something to do.

All these guys skew older. It’s Florida.

I leave Florida feeling I missed a golden age. The post WWII crowd. One of these guys worked for IBM. He was an underage WWII soldier. First generation American of immigrant parents. Learned some mechanical skills in military. Works for IBM his whole life as a machinist in Armonk NY.

Full retirement at maybe 62. Full medical. Saved some money with company stock. Has a comfortable worry free life. Never stressed about employment or retirement.

Another guy goes to work for Ford. Union guy. Worked in the paint department. Lifetime of employment. Guy has a Pooh house. Again, full retirement and full health care. Completely immune from today’s shit show.

Just guys who raised families, worked all their lives and are enjoying the final payoff of what used to be the American dream.

Unions and lifetime employment are dead. Retiring at 62 is dead. Working til you’re 80 and bankruptcy due to health care expense is the new American reality.

Portable 401k and a completely uncertain health insurance future is a fail for the vast majority of our country. These are Trump’s desperate devotees. Angry, poor, uncertain and searching for revolution.

Calamity is the catalyst for change. Dodd Frank never woulda happened if half the country didn’t end up broke and homeless.

The broke and underinsured baby boomers are a bomb set to go off.

Lol, it’s Labor Day. What a joke.