Health care is turning into a consumer product

Re:Health care is turning into a consumer product by dragonwriter on Monday January 10, 2022 @12:25PM (#29878205)

> Employer based healthcare is a result of the stabilization act of 1942. Health benefits were offered as incentives to workers because employers could not raise wages.

Employers can raise wages, and have been able to for some time, so that's not why we still have it.

We still have it because of tax and other incentives, and because government keeps making policy decisions to protect, and even extend it (e.g., the ACA employer mandate), not because of the employers need to offer health benefits to compete because they can't offer more wages because of WWII-era wage controls.

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Re:Health care is turning into a consumer product by nopenopenopeno on Monday January 10, 2022 @01:58PM (#29879778)

Employers love employer-based healthcare because it gives them insane amounts of control over their employees’ livelihoods. And as a result, wage competition is far less influential.

The fear of losing healthcare coverage a severe fear that people in other countries don’t have to worry about.

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Re:Health care is turning into a consumer product by ch4s3 on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:17PM (#29880163)

I think a lot of employers find it to be a giant headache. It’s expensive and tricky to administer and has nothing to do with your core competency as a business.

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Re:Health care is turning into a consumer product by pg_bot on Monday January 10, 2022 @02:16PM (#29880147)

I did not state that this is why we currently have employer based health insurance, just why it came into existence. Many consider this to be the "original sin" of US healthcare policy.

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