What if gigs aren't a stop-gap, but the way our economy and society is failing people?

This has been going on for decades---I can remember complaints about UPS, etc., delivery employees being replaced by contractors, and I've worked for places with the infamous 19.5hr/wk schedule.

Not sure how this is related to healthcare. I'm from France where everybody has healthcare and the gig economy is still huge. In the US you could either go single payer like France or full private/free market but obligatory like in Switzerland or the Netherlands. Either way, this is not related to the gig economy. The US has a problem where an oligopoly of insurances are trying to keep a bad status quo.

Sorry if I was unclear. My point is that gig workers in the US and other people of transient employment status do not generally consider themselves to have access to healthcare, even though they technically do through the accumulation of unpayable debt.

The average Uber driver makes about $35,000 per year: https://www.thestreet.com/personal-finance/education/how-muc....

That’s about 300% of the federal poverty line. Under the ACA, they can purchase health insurance on the exchanges for a premium that is capped at 8-10% of their income.[1] In Germany, a self-employed person would pay 15% for mandatory state health insurance premiums. (People who work for a company pay half of that, with their employer paying the other half.)

Here in Maryland, a quick search of the ACA exchange shows a Silver Kaiser Permanente plan for $266 per month (subsidized) for a 35-year old single person making $35,000.

Mean, median, and mode...

"Pay Per Month: A median of $155 per month and an average of $364"

Then, there's that "pay" isn't "pay". These are gross numbers rather than net.

"The actual expenses of driving, like maintenance and gas, consume about $4.87 per hour of a driver's income."

2/3 of Uber drivers only do it part time, so the median isn’t a useful data point if you’re talking about health insurance. The $36,00 figure is for full time. Regardless, if someone makes less than that driving Uber, their ACA premiums are correspondingly lower. And if they make really little, they are eligible for Medicaid in many states.

In germany consistently working for a company like Uber as part of "gig" would likely fall under "fake self-employed", so Uber would have to offer you an employment contract and you'd pay half of the 15%, so about 8%, which falls on the lower end of your premium caps. You'd also gain accident insurance and other privileges or protections.

No way they do ... "indeed.com" has no backing of those numbers.

It’s just an absurd situation that health care is tied to employment in the first place. If you get sick and can’t work, you just become a burden on society that’s not accounted for anywhere — but society still has to pay for anyway.

And we wonder why our healthcare costs are so high...

We aren't failing people: unemployment hasn't been this low in 20 years.

We have spent 28 trillion dollars on welfare, yet the poverty rate is unchanged over decades. The only thing that supports people is work, and we need to eliminate as many impediments to it as possible: over-regulation, payroll taxes, income taxes. Make huge cuts to welfare with the savings and streamline healthcare to provide cheap, basic services to every citizen (in line with disallowing citizenship by birth).

Then, regulate the supply of labour by barring immigration from poor countries (establish a liberal visa regime with countries in the HDI top 30 though, to allow legitimate talent to come to America). You have the recipe for a reasonable, modern life for any American willing to work. It could be a blueprint for the whole Western world.

> unemployment hasn't been this low in 20 years.

This is not really accurate. Unemployment is at a 40 year high. (where "unemployment" means "percent of working-aged people without a job")

https://www.theatlas.com/charts/B1SUWjSx7 (that big drop is people losing their jobs). The last time the numbers were this bad was back around 1979.

One can read a lot into that chart, depending on one's own bias.

For example, if jobs get better, then families can live on one income. This is good. We're still way above the workforce participation of the 1950s, which generally was a better time for family life in the USA.

   which generally was a better time for family life in the USA. 

I suspect a good chunk of the population would dispute that statement. In general I think there is a lot of rose colored glasses about that period of time.

Regardless - I haven't seen any evidence that we are returning to a general viability of supporting a family on one income, at least supporting it well. Do you know of any?

If you were serious about providing a reasonable, modern life for Americans wouldn't you provide high quality free healthcare as a basic right? Wouldn't you provide free education and eliminate student debt? Wouldn't you ensure a dignified retirement and old age for all?

Your manifesto doesn't include these things, why not?

> streamline healthcare to provide cheap, basic services to every citizen

Already covered that.

We can pay for healthcare for all citizens, but it will mean excluding very expensive things like heart surgery, cancer treatment, joint replacements. We will probably need to be much more forward on euthanasia for the old, to save resources.

We can provide free higher education, but its going to mean no student housing, no athletics programs and restricting college to the top 20% of the cohort academically.

Why should we have to tax the current worker population in order to pay for old people to do nothing? The current retirement system is a flawed ponzi scheme. People have continued to work until death or impairment in the past - why should retirement be considered a human right now?

Cut payroll taxes and income taxes, and the elderly can happily work 1-2 days per week, and businesses will be happy to have them. Store clerks, fast food workers, cleaners, child carers. These jobs can be done well by the elderly, and work keeps the brain active and healthy.

What if I want to work part-time throughout my life, and never retire? Shouldn't I have the ability as an individual to decide how and if I want to retire?

What is it like to live in a country where things that every other developed country seems to be able to afford (like public health care) are impossible without invoking “euthanasia for the old”?