Here's how twisted around everything is...

[cthulu2016]

Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2012, 11:44 AM - Edit history (2)

Should employers be forced to pay for contraception...

Employers do not pay for employee health insurance plans.

Employees pay for employee health insurance plans. The employer merely mails in the employee's money.

It is compensation, not a gift. Part of an employee's pay, their overall compensation, is diverted to an insurance company. The employer does the paperwork but it is the employee's money being spent. Their pay... their compensation for doing the work.

An employer pays for the particular elements of an employee's health insurance plan in the same uncompelling way the employer is "paying for booze and gambling" if an employee chooses to spend their paycheck on booze and gambling.

But we are such peasants that we are conditioned to think of benefits as grand paternal gestures coming out of the employer's end, not as an unexceptional part of our pay-package.

[limpyhobbler]

1. yep that's crazy alright

[russspeakeasy]

2. 100%

[progressoid]

3. +1

[unblock]

4. freedom and liberty are all about the rights and privileges of businesses and the ultra-wealthy.

and how dare us peons try to restrict freedom!

shame on the worker proles for forcing their (sac-)religious values on god-fearing businesses!

[glinda]

5. That is how the Conservatives are fooling the public in many areas. The Media fails

to do its research and corrections AT THE TIME of these arguments or statements. I am only speaking of anything resembling "real media or reporting" of which there is very little of in existence.

[Motown_Johnny]

6. my employer pays for part of my health insurance

I don't know the specifics about Catholic Hospitals or schools so I can't comment on that.

[cthulu2016]

7. The part your employer pays is your pay.

Your employer pays you in the form of making a payment on your behalf to a health insurer.

If your employer increased your take home pay by exactly what the employer currently pays toward health insurance and you had to pay the whole thing it works out the same. The difference is who mails the check, but it is your money being spent either way.

It is part of your overall compensation for doing the work.

[Tx4obama]

9. +100. Well said! n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

12. Sorry but you are wrong

My employer is in a program where the county pays 1/3, the employer pays 1/3 and the employee pays 1/3.


If my pay was increased by that 1/3 I wouldn't be able to buy the same insurance that I now have.


Also it was an increase to my pay since I worked there before we were in the program and we didn't have health insurance. The assumption that it is anything but an employer contribution is false.

[tblue37]

14. Actually, health insurance coverage was a way for employers to keep down wages--by

offering health insurance as a substitute for appropriate wage increases.

A long time ago employers decided to bargain with unions (and by extension indirectly with other employees) this way: since they could get tax breaks on contributions to health insurance for employees, they bargained to offer health insurance payments in place of a suitable pay raise. Employees figured that since they wouldn’t be taxed on their health insurance compensation, that would be a good deal for them, too, so they took it. But this set up is one reason why medical costs have soared in the US (and why we can’t get national single-payer health care).

It is also why health insurance companies are in the catbird seat so that even if we were to be paid that money as wages now instead of as health insurance coverage, we still wouldn’t be able to afford the cost of coverage—and probably wouldn’t be able to get an insurance company to cover us anyway.

Now, however, employers are reneging on the deal—cutting their health insurance contributions or eliminating them altogether, and the government is promising to tax the better health insurance policies as “income,” so the employees get screwed. It was a lousy deal—but those who took it did not foresee these nasty consequences.

[Motown_Johnny]

25. Actually, it was a way to increase compensation (you have it backward)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_insurance_in_the_United_States

^snip^


Employer-sponsored health insurance plans dramatically expanded as a result of wage controls during World War II.[6] The labor market was tight because of the increased demand for goods and decreased supply of workers during the war. Federally imposed wage and price controls prohibited manufacturers and other employers raising wages high enough to attract sufficient workers. When the War Labor Board declared that fringe benefits, such as sick leave and health insurance, did not count as wages for the purpose of wage controls, employers responded with significantly increased benefits.[6] Between 1940 and 1950, the total number of people enrolled in health insurance plans grew from 20,662,000 to 142,334,000,[9] and by 1958, 75% of Americans had some form of health coverage.[10]

[lumberjack_jeff]

21. Your employer has never said...

Last edited Thu Feb 9, 2012, 01:38 PM - Edit history (1)

"Sorry, I can't give you a raise because the employers share of your health benefits has raised the total compensation cost"?

You've bought into their frame. If the pay of everyone in your pool was increased by 1/3, y'all could collectively buy the same insurance that you now have.

The whole point of employer based medical insurance is arbitrage. Instead of paying you $100 which you will use to purchase $100 of services, the employer uses their economies of scale to buy the service for $60 and "gives" it to you in lieu of the $100 of compensation you would otherwise require.

[Motown_Johnny]

24. Nope, he has never said that

I haven't bought into anything. You are kidding yourself. Individuals can't buy health care for the same cost that a pool of workers can buy.


Maybe my case is unusual but it is pretty clear to me that I couldn't possibly afford the same coverage if I were on my own.


You are simply wrong, give it up.

[cthulu2016]

26. Great, but irrelevant to the main point

Of course there are reasons people tend to get health insurance through their employer. It is, in practice, cheaper than we could purchase ourselves given the current system.

But there is some sum of money your employer could pay you that would purchase equivalent health coverage. Even it is is a million dollars, it is a discerable sum of money.

Since you cannot buy the thing as cheaply as your employer can it is efficient for the employer to make paying for that part of your compensation. It benefits both sides, in relative terms.

That does not change the fact that whatever an employers contribution is, the employer makes that contribution on behalf of the employee as part of their pay. The employer also matches your social security tax as part of your pay.

[Motown_Johnny]

29. many parts of labor cost are not pay

benefits are among them


Distorting the definition of the word "pay" to make it synonymous with the word "cost" does not make it so.

[cthulu2016]

30. Salary paid is also "cost"

Some costs associated with employing someone are not compensation. For instance, the cost of maintaining a personel office is not a benefit to the employee.

Benefits of which the employee is the beneficiary (like health insurance) are, however, compensation for labor. By definition.

It's there to be understood, or not.

[RevStPatrick]

8. Good framing, cthulu...

You're well on your way to that nomination in 2016.

[Capitalocracy]

11. I like Cthulhu's rhetoric...

but it's still hard for me to look past his soul-eating policies.

Well, still better than Ron Paul or Rick Santorum, I guess.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. A few souls here and there are a small price to pay.

So long as it isn't anyone I personally know.

[Capitalocracy]

23. A bit concerned about the State of the Union Address, though...

considering the fact that as soon as the members of Congress see him enter the room, they'll all go crazy and either try to tear out their own eyes or murder the person next to them.

Come to think of it, he's got my vote. We need a new Congress anyway.

[Dragonfli]

27. Cthulhu's soul-eating policies are a direct result of Souls eaten by the right, he has to eat

more souls if he wants to win.

Do you want him to face Romney with his hands tied behind his back?
He needs all the souls he can devour to win,

The Republicans might win and we know they are capable of evil, we just need to be a little more evil to win, get it?
It's for the greater good to eat souls and sacrifice the lives of trusting children.

Better we do all the evil instead, that way good wins, after all, you wouldn't want to face the final conflict between good and evil by bringing honesty and courage to a corruption fight do you? You can only beat corruption and evil by matching it with corruption and evil you do realize that don't you?

[cthulu2016]

28. Remember McCain's call to be "part of something larger than yourself"?

I think folks will be lining up to be consumed.

[Fridays Child]

10. +1

[Ruby the Liberal]

13. Try to find affordable insurance without an employer's plan and get back to me.

Things like contraception are routinely negotiated out of the contracts to keep costs down.

[enough]

15. You're right, that notion is so deeply engrained that we don't even notice it.

And sometimes can't even see it after it's been explained. Thanks for spelling this out. It's part of compensation, of part of the payment for work.

Maybe one way of looking at it is that the employer would not be "paying for" part of your health insurance if you were not working the job. It's not a gift, or a tax on the employer.

[cthulu2016]

19. precisely

Benefits belong to the employee as earned by her work.


A Catholic employee of General Motors could more sensibly complain about "having to pay for contraception" (in that part of his wage is paid in the form of such coverage for himself) than a catholic hospital or university. But nobody would take that complaint seriously.

[ananda]

16. So true.

I'm getting so fed up with all the anti-woman stuff going on right now.

[lunatica]

17. It's a wedge issue during a Presidential election year

Like clockwork it happens every four years. It's pretty amazing how everyone can get swept up in the raging hyperbole and the maelstrom of fear generated by politicians manipulating the voters with the latest outrage or whatever.

[xchrom]

18. That's what I like about unions.

They help to correct that kind of thinking.

[lumberjack_jeff]

20. Exactly right.

They want it both ways. "I can't give you a raise, because I already gave your raise to the insurance company."

[barbtries]

31. fortunately i don't have to include what

my employer pays for my medical insurance as income. i pay 10% of my premiums, so that constitutes a big chunk of change.

[annabanana]

32. Boy Howdy I wish those idiots on TV could GET this!!. . .n/t

[hunter]

33. Bless our mass media and their feudal lords...

... if not for them, the peasants might grow restless.

kick