Employers pay over 2/3 of the health care premium costs for employee families

[riverine]

(family of four)

The largest share of the total cost is the health insurance premium paid by employers.

Last year, the premium for the most popular health plan offered by employers — what is known as a preferred provider organization — for family coverage was $19,481, according to the annual survey done by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research & Educational Trust.

Employers paid $13,430 and employees paid $6,050 of the premium on average.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/06/06/health-care-costs-price-family-four/676046002/

If single-payer ever became a reality employers would benefit the most.

[marble falls]

1. Not if we go single payer as well as raise taxes where they need to be for these companies ...

Maybe on premiums for the niche group of working Americans with employer provided health care, but with a national single payer program all Americans benefit.

[riverine]

4. Unfortunately that is not possible

Corporations only paid 9% of all federal taxes BEFORE Trump's tax cut:

https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/policy-basics-where-do-federal-tax-revenues-come-from

About $300 billion.

Over 10x that amount would be needed annually to pay for single payer since US health care cost over $3.5 trillion that same year.

[True Blue American]

2. That is pathetic

Insurance coverage by employers used to be free!

[Sherman A1]

3. Yes,

And it was far less of an impact to the bottom line.?

[tymorial]

5. It cost less.

[MichMary]

10. It also covered less.

It was called "hospitalization" for a reason.

[tymorial]

20. I don't understand what you mean

Insurance cost less because healthcare cost less. Arguably insurance covered more services than it does today when one takes into considerations that deductibles were generally only applied to hospitalizations and certain outpatient surgical procedures. Most standard labs and procedures were covered entirely without deductible or deductibles at far less rates than today. If you consider the high deductibles most plans have today, many patients go the entire year paying for their own healthcare (minus copays for visits and prescriptions). This wasn't the case 10 to 15 years ago.

[MichMary]

34. Health insurance,

when I was growing up, generally didn't cover office visits, for instance. I had a friend who was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. He had weekly doc appointments, which weren't covered. His parents owed who-knows-how-much to the doc, which they were paying off at $5/week.

I really don't know if PT, X-Rays, or OT were covered, or any of the other things we now take for granted should be included under one's health policy.

Group insurance became more and more comprehensive as time went on, sometimes to attract employees, sometimes as a result of negotiations with unions.

In addition, a lot of the other things we now take for granted--MRIs, CTs, etc--simply didn't exist at the time.

Healthcare has gotten to be outrageously expensive, for a number of reasons.

[uponit7771]

6. ✅

[fleabiscuit]

30. Pretty much the only thing that has ever been free in the US are opinions.

Someone picks up the tab.

[Liberal In Texas]

7. Employers also figure in health insurance as part of the total compensation amount.

If an employees health insurance costs the company, say $10,000/yr., that is offset with a salary that is that much lower.

Somehow when we get Universal Medicare, the monies employers are paying out now should, at least in part, be diverted to paying for the program. Hopefully the employers costs will be lower than present because of the efficiency of Medicare.

[TexasBushwhacker]

11. I think it should be like Medicare is funded now

Contributions by worker AND employer. That way part time employees pay and get coverage. Someone who cobbles together 2 or 3 part time jobs gets coverage and their employers are paying too.

[tymorial]

21. That is already the case

Most employers deduct a portion of the employees salary to pay for part of the premium. And then there are deductibles and cost sharing depending on the plan.

Medicare is a terrible replacement for the current system because most people require supplementary insurance to cover what medicare doesn't (which is quite a bit).

The title "Medicare for All" is a terrible descriptor for universal healthcare.

[Liberal In Texas]

22. Medicare shortfalls can be fixed.

We have these because of repubs. Just fix it!

[tymorial]

24. The problems aren't just because of republicans

We had both houses and the presidency but there has been no will to make medicare a 100% fully funded source of insurance. I don't disagree with you that any universal healthcare plan would need to address these problems. I have a problem with calling it Medicare For All because currently Medicare isn't viable as a national healthcare replacement plan. For one, the current healthcare system couldn't afford it without a significant decrease in healthcare costs. The need for supplementary insurance just to afford healthcare is a second. Congress has acted to fund Medicare and it changed how Medicare pays us as providers and the rules we must follow in order to maintain our rates. Nothing has happened to address the issues at the beneficiary level in a long time however.

[Liberal In Texas]

33. We could start by allowing anybody to "buy in."

If people want to keep what they have presently, fine. I think it will soon become obvious that they will be better off on Medicare, even if a supplemental policy has to be also purchased. Medicare can be fixed, we just need to elect the people with the will to do it.

We had both houses and the pres. for about 25 seconds in recent history. At that time the "great compromise" of the ACA was being hammered out and improving Medicare was not on anybody's radar.

[stopbush]

28. Re: Supplemental insurance with Medicare

Depends on where you live.

My wife goes on Medicare in June with Kaiser. Her supplemental insurance plan will cost her $0, because we live in OC, CA. If we still lived in Fresno, it would cost her $89 a month.

She has added a dental/vision/hearing benefit to her supplemental plan for $20 a month.so she will have a premium of $155 a month that covers pretty much everything at close to 100%.

[stopbush]

26. You left out the monthly premium of $135 that all Medicare recipients pay.

That’s $540 a month for a family of four under MFA.

[exboyfil]

8. Also health insurance provided to employees

is an operating expense. So, in the event, they actually have to pay taxes on profits the taxable amount is reduced by the health insurance benefits.

[riverine]

9. Yes, put another way this is $20K of untaxed income for each employee with a family

SOMEONE will need to pay that $20,000 in a single payer system.

(Or $18,000 if you generously apply a 10% cost benefit).

[Yavin4]

13. Not totally accurate. The $20K includes a profit margin for the health insurance company

A Single payer system removes the profit margin from the premium and also reduces over head costs like administration, advertising, etc.

So the actual premium under a Single payer system would be less.

[riverine]

14. I accounted for that with a 10% cost saving due to

elimination of that profit/overhead.

[Yavin4]

12. Remember that the employee also pays a deductible on top of that as well.

In sum, the average employee pays $500 a month for their health insurance, a deductible when using health care services, and a co-pay as well.

[smirkymonkey]

15. I remember a time when my employer covered health insurance was so

good, I never saw a bill for anything. Not for regular visits, knee surgeries, hospital stays, prescriptions, etc. I am still covered, but I have to pay much more out of pocket. I usually only go to the doctor for maintenance visits, but it still adds up.

[roamer65]

16. Employers will continue to cut the amount they pay.

I have heard talk at my work place of simply paying a set amount each year to the employee and giving access to group rates.

[Efilroft Sul]

17. What employers pay for is not health insurance premiums but social control.

If employees had Medicare for all, or a public option, they could truly tell a suck-ass employer to "take this job and shove it." So while employers are always looking to pay less on their premiums, and many employer plans stink, they also know that they got hapless workers by the balls here.

Sure, the employers would greatly benefit if they no longer had to pay for insurance. But they don't want to see the rest of us benefit just as much by being able to go elsewhere, starting our own businesses, or going back to school.

[RANDYWILDMAN]

29. This post should be it's own thread

Very true and inciteful

Way more truth then we as a country are willing to talk about.....

[Efilroft Sul]

35. Thanks, Randy!

[mr_lebowski]

31. Why let them off the hook for paying for insurance?

I've never heard anybody explain why this is somehow necessary in a single-payer system.

They should continue paying a similar amount per-worker that they do now. Just to the single-payer system instead of the private system.

[Efilroft Sul]

36. Your last sentence is a good workaround.

But getting back to what I said, the employers won't do this because it empowers the workers. Social control is part of the cost of doing business.

[Flaleftist]

18. Employers do have the benefit that offering good insurance

is a way to retain employees. There are many people who are kind of stuck where they are because a dependent needs their insurance.

[WeekiWater]

19. There is a bit more to it than that.

It's compensation. There are some tax deductions. Employers will probably benefit as they won't shift the whole compensation amount to the employee. It probably won't even come close as they can then claim their taxes went up. Not only in the loss of the deduction but as a whole to cover costs as well.

Another way employees are penalized is that the premium increase hold back raises. This is specially true for small companies. The premiums I had to absorb last year equaled out to an enormous raise for my employees. That means their checks went down yet they got a raise.

We have to lose the connection between job and healthcare.

[Opel_Justwax]

23. Under medicare for all employers would pay $11k per year including the families.

[riverine]

25. please link

I have never seen single payer costed out.

[mr_lebowski]

27. Great. So make them give that same amount of money to the single-payer system instead ...

If it costs $750/mo per person in the US to cover the costs of the program (including everyone, whether employed or not), employers pay $500/mo per employee, employees pay $250/mo.

It doesn't have to be THAT simple, but something along these lines.

The idea that if we have some kind of single payer that employers should get to just STOP paying into the system ... when they are paying into the private system now ... seems a little silly. We're GOING to need that money, no question about that.

[GeorgeGist]

32. I thought it was work performed by the employee ...

that paid health insurance premiums.

[keithbvadu2]

37. Related article... For many Texas teachers, health insurance premiums are huge -- but so are the hospi

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1016230124

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/04/12/texas-teach-health-benefits-pay-raises/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_content=1555035598&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook

Related article… For many Texas teachers, health insurance premiums are huge -- but so are the hospital bills