Seriously, why do you fear Universal Healthcare as a solution for US?

An expense is a burden. The more expense, or more burden, the more impact on a business. IMO a business should only expense items which are directly related to the business model. Expenses like FICA and health care, and even sick and personal leave, pensions, etc., are expenses not directly related to the business model. Yes these things can be voluntarily offered by a business but they should not be mandatory.

One big debate in the USA is American competitiveness compared to foreign business. How can this be debated unless all world businesses provide the same indirect expenses? Yes labor is a major cost of business, and labor rates vary around the world, but so do all these indirect expenses. I'm not against employee benefits like health care and 401K and sick leave but I think they should be voluntary and not mandated...

 

Is it really a burden for the employer to provide a quality employment compensation package to the employee?

Several years ago I partnered with a long time business associate to start a small manufacturing company several years ago as a part of the preliminary work we had to create our business plan based upon our business model. The business plan had to address employees and we found a meeting of the minds on this subject. Both of us agreed that we should treat our new employees identically to how we would want to be treated if we were the employee. That included enough income to live on. It included two weeks vacation for the first five years and then increased by a week every five years. It included two weeks of sick time that would roll over into vacation time if not used during the year. It included company funding for an employee 401K retirement plan. It included annual profit sharing with the employees, Finally, to wrap up the employee compensation package it also included a health, dental and prescription insurance plan where the company would fund 80% of the costs. Those are all items in the compensation package that we would expect from an employer and it's exactly what we incorporated into the business plan. It wasn't hard to accommodate in the business plan with a target cost of 25% of gross revenue.

In practice we had highly motivated employees, only one employee ever left the company (for personal reasons), and they really produced the highest quality and they ensured that the work was done ahead of schedule. They required minimal management although we were always actively on the floor helping then when then needed anything. The actual labor compensation costs were consistently between 22% and 24% of gross revenue every month.

I don't think the expense was any burden at all because it was a key part of the business plan to fulfill our business model that not only addressed our customers but also included our suppliers, our employees and it included us, the owners, as well. We wanted a customer win, a supplier win, an employee win, and an owner win and that's exactly what we accomplished IMHO.

That's a bogus "big debate" because competition isn't based upon labor rates that are typically between 20%-30% of gross revenue. The key is focusing on producing what the market needs regardless of whether it's goods or services. For example production of mild steel, the most used alloy, moved out of the US because other countries could produce the massive amounts for less. Our steel industry rebounded by focusing on special alloy steels that require vey high quality production processes. US steel producers have orders backlogged for up to almost two years on some of these alloys.

What we don't have is a government backed effort to improve our industries toward the high end specialization that other countries can't match. We do it but without much government involvement and then you have someone like Donald Trump that puts some of the key agencies on the chopping block and that will hurt the enterprises.

 

I'm not interested in discussing 'quality employment compensation' since it's 100% subjective and not an ingredient in producing goods and services. I have no problem with companies volunteering employee benefits but hate when they are mandated. Society dreams up this stuff then puts pressure on business to fund those demands with zero regard for the bottom line impact on the business. I don't have a problem if business voluntarily provides a cash incentive to be used to invest in pensions and health care, etc. but I don't like the business itself involved in nonsense like collecting and distributing FICA withholding.

Well...labor rates definitely play a huge role in the costs of running a business. If a US company has work being done in China, using 100,000 workers, on average they cost the company $3 less per work hour, this is a labor savings of $624 MILLION per year! And when Competitor A uses less expensive labor this requires Competitor B to do the same or greatly reduce other costs to remain competitive.

 

I stand corrected. "Quality employment compensation" is subjective but the "minimum mandatory compensation" that the person has a natural right to is not subjective* and included in the minimum mandatory compensation is the necessity to fund health care.

*MIT quantified the minimum mandatory cost of living.http://livingwage.mit.edu/

When the market drives the "price for labor" below the "cost for labor" it is a failure of capitalism that must be corrected. Capitalism cannot exist when the price is below the cost. What part of that do people not understand?

 

I wasn't correcting you...just saying that employee compensation varies from business to business and town to town...that it has some roots in supply and demand of labor but beyond this it's quite subjective.

No person has a 'natural right' to any form of compensation. We have some laws but even minimum wage laws are bogus when millions of Americans can legally be paid below the minimum wage.

When two people compete for a job, this determines the wage, and from the perspective of the employer this has nothing to do with funding health care. Just as it has nothing to do with the employee being able to afford a new car.

As a farmer who hires labor we currently pay between $17 and 25/hour. If I could hire workers for $5-7/hour, and if there are workers who would agree with this, I would hire them to do non-essential work...but I can't do this. Who does this policy benefit??

I live in a county in which the median price of homes is $650K, closer in to my small town the median price is $1 million, and in the rural areas prices range from $2-3 million to $25 million. We have 480,000 people in the county. With high property values comes high rent values. We are paying $17 to $25/hour and none of these workers can afford to live in the area. In fact, how much would I need to pay workers in order to afford a $650K home plus all other essentials? It's not possible! Therefore, any concept or idea of paying employees a 'minimum mandatory cost of living' wage can't happen.

Although I do care about their lives and well-being what am I supposed to do? I can't care where they live, what kind of car they drive, whether they can afford health care, etc.. Very large farming companies can come closer to providing health care but even them can never pay a wage that allows their workers to live in the area.

I'm guessing this same scenario applies to most other industries as well...

 

Well, healthcare is a bit different. When you are admitted to the hospital, you aren't the customer.. Your admitting physician is the customer.

 

Yes, I am well aware of that MRIs would not be justified in a rural community hospital, yet they do serve the public and had a purpose.

Its very important to be able to sue a physician for mal practice. .. otherwise you have almost no recourse.

You might look at how medical mal is structured in different states and who is most litigious.

 

They all are litigous as hell. That's what happens when you have one lawyer for every 250 people and a bureaucracy composed in the main of lawyers. The worst thing ever happened to this country was when we started to let the damn ambulance chasers advertise. On the other hand if you want market driven medical care you have to have accurate easily available information on what hospitals does what treatment best which doctors are burying more patients than they heal and the circumstance surrounding that issue. For instance a doc administering a hospice care unit isn't going to save many lives but I'm not going to a surgeon that is losing 3 times as many patients as the national average for the that type of surgery.

 

And those services are generally elective.

 

What difference does that make? The services get better and more cost effective every year in gross contrast to everything that has been greatly affected by government for decades.

 

But you haven't tried to the Market approach to healthcare, so the claim is false.

 

So, what nation are you referencing as an example?

 

?? Absolutely we have. What are you talking about???

Before the ACA there was a less aggressive approach to regulation. That failed.

Before that there was an even LESS aggressive approach to regulation.

That failed, too.

Etc., etc.

This idea that we haven't tried free market capitalism is just a matter of not knowing our history. We've tried over and over again.

And, it's not going to get any easier, as health care today has advanced to the point where it is expensive - even if people stopped making much money at it. The equipment, education and drugs all require extensive work.

The basic problem is that "maximize profit for shareholders" doesn't align well with the goal of "HC for citizens". It works great for cars, because we don't care whether everyone has a car. We don't even bother to ask whether everyone has a car. We know they don't and we don't care.

We can continue to try to force the alignment of capitalism and health care through regulation or we can wake up and recognize that there is a fundamental flaw - we actually DO care whether people get health care.

 

Well no one has. LOL

 

There is none

 

Exactly!

 

If you want to lower the cost and expand the availability of a product, reduce government's role in managing and delivering that product to the public. More government control always results in shortages and rationing.

Economics is like gravity. Its laws cannot be changed by ideology.

 

Except healthcare. and fire protection and police and roads and schools and ...etc

 

It didn't fail. Before Obamacare, 90% of the public was insured and they liked their coverage. That's a success.

Half of the remaining 10% didn't even want coverage. They were young and healthy.

 

Of course they don't want coverage. They want me to pay for their healthcare at the ER

 

Healthcare coverage (insurance) is a market where people purchase a product.

No one buys "police". Public employees are not a market.

 

That's so much BS!!!

 

They don't because police services are socialized. It could EASILY be privatized

 

One of the big problems with Obamacare is that healthy, young people are not signing up. They don't want coverage.

This is well known. Pay attention.

 

So I should keep paying for them?