Hamilton Hambone--more genius and a great summation of what I have observed in my HR career! Single payer healthcare in the long-run is a savings for all businesseses, and levels the playing field for small and midsized businesses--which are more easily converted to worker ownership (or started as such).
Theres another line item that it would eliminate for businesses--the shadow healthcare system created by workers compensation insurance.
The "it's NOT COMMUNISM" line is one of the clearest explanations I've ever heard (duh) of how all these employer-provided benefits got established. How many of us have stayed in a soul-dead job longer than we wanted to "for the benefits"? Such as they were. Good piece.
Individual human lives are of no use to corporations, who neither want nor need employees. Corporate fascists stole our DATA, and no longer value us as consumers, nor the physical world obligations we have as inhabitants of Earth - the very miracles of our existence in any universe and time.
Only money though techno-feudalism and cloud capital will keep their Ponzi schemes going. If ALL of humanity must suffer and die - then that is what must happen - AT ALL COSTS - their grifts under a monstrous worldview of “Crackpot Realism” will not end and they will never lower themselves to be among us. Any plan or suggestion to the contrary is just bad wishful thinking, trapped deep within in a wholly corrupt corporate fascist system. Healthcare is no longer the issue. Now, the issue is EVERYTHING. Humans are lacking EVERYTHING required for our survival - even peace and safety. We lack sane systems with sane incentives and humane policies. What we have in our present moment American experience is a death trap.
You are right on the money. If the USA had created a tri party agreement between industry, government, and labor after WWII in this country like they did in Europe and Japan everything would be different and better. Bargaining by industry instead of plant by plant or company by company would have leveled the playing field for labor costs.
If you can deal with a little Malcolm Gladwell (and the paywall or maybe one article for free?), the fear of COMMUNISM nonsense that undergirds our current clusterf#%k of a pension system was nicely covered in this 2006 article:
We have made zero (or negative) progress since and the free market nonsense from our business leaders bankrupted both GM and Chrysler but still they seem to want employer based healthcare and pensions instead of sharing those obligation broadly as a society. Sigh.
I've never quite understood why corporations aren't for Universal Healthcare since they would immediately be able to stop paying for employer provided benefits.
Because they don't really care about the money. They spend billions of dollars to bribe, er... lobby, Congress critters to not help us and themselves. Jobs are a means of oppressing, controlling, and abusing us. It's called wage SLAVERY for a reason.
But think of the money they'd make! They drop all the health insurance (except for supplementary plan for execs) Then they wouldn't actually change what they'd pay the employees even though they just got a lot cheaper and they could use that money for more stock buy-backs. It's be a win-win situation.
I've been saying for years now that business should have been on the front lines of fighting for universal healthcare. That they aren't is very telling. And here is why I think that is. More than the money, they want to be able to control their employees. to keep unhappy underpaid employees in their ranks with a threat of losing healthcare hanging over their heads. It's a power move. If they were thinking rationally and greed based, they would be on the front lines fighting for Universal healthcare.
Agree with nearly 100% of what you've outlined here. I've long thought that decoupling health insurance from employment would also do wonders for entrepreneurship, encouraging far more folks to take exciting, bold, meaningful risks.
With that said, I'm not sure I'm with you re the anti-gig-economy bit. With the decoupling, plus perhaps UBI, I say 'let a thousand types of employment bloom'. If people want to drive, say, just 3 hours a week for a rideshare company and be truly independent contractors, let 'em!
Keeping the gig economy as an option means less red tape for employers and workers and, at least theoretically IMHO, more options, more flexibility, less hassle all 'round.
The gig economy sucks now, clearly, because all of us Americans need the benefits that are currently coupled with actual employment, but once that's fixed...
Labor is not on the same side. Yes, business would love to dump all the benefit administration. But large unions would demand they keep their high-end plans. Medicare for all would never be able to afford those benefits. So, business would end up having to pay for both and that would never happen.
I completely agree with you (as I pretty much always do), and thought a long time about the idea that businesses should be falling over themselves to insist on government-sponsored healthcare, and wondering why they weren't.
Then it finally dawned on me: they'd be the ones to get taxed way more than they already do in order to pay for a government-sponsored healthcare system. Oh no.
I so look forward to this newsletter popping up in my inbox, and one day when I'm not drowning in gig-land, I'll become a paid subscriber (right now I've been out of work for months, my residency in Mexico seeming to be an additional impediment to any US-based even gig jobs. Why pay me those rates when they could get me for a third of the price because of where I live?). Anyway, thanks for writing these and sending them out. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about them!
Hamilton Hambone--more genius and a great summation of what I have observed in my HR career! Single payer healthcare in the long-run is a savings for all businesseses, and levels the playing field for small and midsized businesses--which are more easily converted to worker ownership (or started as such).
Theres another line item that it would eliminate for businesses--the shadow healthcare system created by workers compensation insurance.
The "it's NOT COMMUNISM" line is one of the clearest explanations I've ever heard (duh) of how all these employer-provided benefits got established. How many of us have stayed in a soul-dead job longer than we wanted to "for the benefits"? Such as they were. Good piece.
Individual human lives are of no use to corporations, who neither want nor need employees. Corporate fascists stole our DATA, and no longer value us as consumers, nor the physical world obligations we have as inhabitants of Earth - the very miracles of our existence in any universe and time.
Only money though techno-feudalism and cloud capital will keep their Ponzi schemes going. If ALL of humanity must suffer and die - then that is what must happen - AT ALL COSTS - their grifts under a monstrous worldview of “Crackpot Realism” will not end and they will never lower themselves to be among us. Any plan or suggestion to the contrary is just bad wishful thinking, trapped deep within in a wholly corrupt corporate fascist system. Healthcare is no longer the issue. Now, the issue is EVERYTHING. Humans are lacking EVERYTHING required for our survival - even peace and safety. We lack sane systems with sane incentives and humane policies. What we have in our present moment American experience is a death trap.
🎯🎯🎯
You are right on the money. If the USA had created a tri party agreement between industry, government, and labor after WWII in this country like they did in Europe and Japan everything would be different and better. Bargaining by industry instead of plant by plant or company by company would have leveled the playing field for labor costs.
If you can deal with a little Malcolm Gladwell (and the paywall or maybe one article for free?), the fear of COMMUNISM nonsense that undergirds our current clusterf#%k of a pension system was nicely covered in this 2006 article:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/08/28/the-risk-pool
We have made zero (or negative) progress since and the free market nonsense from our business leaders bankrupted both GM and Chrysler but still they seem to want employer based healthcare and pensions instead of sharing those obligation broadly as a society. Sigh.
*ahem*
"Dental plan!" "Lisa needs braces!"
I've never quite understood why corporations aren't for Universal Healthcare since they would immediately be able to stop paying for employer provided benefits.
Because they don't really care about the money. They spend billions of dollars to bribe, er... lobby, Congress critters to not help us and themselves. Jobs are a means of oppressing, controlling, and abusing us. It's called wage SLAVERY for a reason.
It's just weird though. Corporate execs are all about the short term quick money maker schemes.
But think of the money they'd make! They drop all the health insurance (except for supplementary plan for execs) Then they wouldn't actually change what they'd pay the employees even though they just got a lot cheaper and they could use that money for more stock buy-backs. It's be a win-win situation.
I've been saying for years now that business should have been on the front lines of fighting for universal healthcare. That they aren't is very telling. And here is why I think that is. More than the money, they want to be able to control their employees. to keep unhappy underpaid employees in their ranks with a threat of losing healthcare hanging over their heads. It's a power move. If they were thinking rationally and greed based, they would be on the front lines fighting for Universal healthcare.
Agree with nearly 100% of what you've outlined here. I've long thought that decoupling health insurance from employment would also do wonders for entrepreneurship, encouraging far more folks to take exciting, bold, meaningful risks.
With that said, I'm not sure I'm with you re the anti-gig-economy bit. With the decoupling, plus perhaps UBI, I say 'let a thousand types of employment bloom'. If people want to drive, say, just 3 hours a week for a rideshare company and be truly independent contractors, let 'em!
Keeping the gig economy as an option means less red tape for employers and workers and, at least theoretically IMHO, more options, more flexibility, less hassle all 'round.
The gig economy sucks now, clearly, because all of us Americans need the benefits that are currently coupled with actual employment, but once that's fixed...
FELICES THE EMPLOYER BASED SOCIAL SAFETY
Plus there's the whole thing of corporations wanting the workers dependent on the employers.
Labor is not on the same side. Yes, business would love to dump all the benefit administration. But large unions would demand they keep their high-end plans. Medicare for all would never be able to afford those benefits. So, business would end up having to pay for both and that would never happen.
I completely agree with you (as I pretty much always do), and thought a long time about the idea that businesses should be falling over themselves to insist on government-sponsored healthcare, and wondering why they weren't.
Then it finally dawned on me: they'd be the ones to get taxed way more than they already do in order to pay for a government-sponsored healthcare system. Oh no.
I so look forward to this newsletter popping up in my inbox, and one day when I'm not drowning in gig-land, I'll become a paid subscriber (right now I've been out of work for months, my residency in Mexico seeming to be an additional impediment to any US-based even gig jobs. Why pay me those rates when they could get me for a third of the price because of where I live?). Anyway, thanks for writing these and sending them out. I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about them!
Sorry, this is America. We can’t have nice things.
Excellent 💯👍
Maybe the execs are too heavily invested in our scammy, for-profit healthcare corporations.