She laments that her dog has health insurance, yet she does not.
I will bet an ice cream bar that HER DOG DID NOT purchase that ‘health insurance’ by itself. The woman did that. I think alot of my animals-—horses AND dogs, but none have health insurance. I have a good vet & I know how to diagnose & treat many horse items by myself. Panic is left out of the equation.
I also agree that companies should NOT be providing health insurance. The company & the provider set the standards, and if the employee bought their own, they could make their own choices.
I have been self-employed since 1980. NO benefits-—NO paid vacations-—NO paid holidays-—Increase in pay when I decided & no OVERTIME pay for all the hours I worked overtime.
I had my own health insurance with State Farm-—until I turned 55 & they raised my premium from about $240 a month to over $560 a month. I told the agent that I was “Just as healthy the day before I turned 55 as the day after I turned 55”. She said there wasn’t anything she could do. I dropped the policy & went until age 65 without ANY insurance. Only have Part A Medicare, also, and am now 80.
Retired, except for 1 client ( have done his bookkeeping for over 50 years) and don’t even make enough SS to file income tax return. I also wished to take my health insurance wherever I moved... and I did move-—completely out of California. YEAH!!!
I'd leave that up to the company. No employee is required to sign up for the company health plan. Companies started offering health service as an extra incentive in hiring in a competitive market.
Now, an employee 'expecting' free health care from the company is putting a different, and bad, twist on it.
My thing w/ insurance, and I believe the President just signed an EO allowing it, is allow flexibility for both parties.
Option 1: If your company wants to provide it and take advantage of any tax breaks, fine.
Option 2: If your company want to give you a stipend to help you pay for the policy you got, on your own, so both parties can take advantage of the tax breaks that should be allowed under law.
Option 3: If your company doesn’t want to give you anything and you’re on your own, fine. You’re on your own but there should be tax advantages to doing so.
After that, the free market will solve any and all problems.