mister d wrote: ↑Fri Jan 12, 2018 8:32 pmI still don't get your logic here unless you're saying employer obligations would just disappear and they'd pocket whatever they'd been spending on health benefits.
That is what I'm saying. My employees don't know how much we spend on their health insurance. So if our health insurance obligation disappeared (or went way down), there would be nothing to require us to give all of that windfall to our employees. The way we run our firm, we probably would, because we're suckers like that. (The employee contribution for health premiums has not changed since I got here in 1998.) And even if we did raise salaries equal to the reduction in premiums, that additional salary would be taxable income, whereas the money we spend on premiums is not.
And I don't think most employers would pass all of their savings to their employees.
Meanwhile, everyone's taxes would go up to a noticeable degree.
So with single payer, you would definitely have less overall spending on health care / health insurance. But you'd have millions of W-2 employees whose taxes have gone up and whose pay may or may not have gone up enough to come out ahead.
Meanwhile, people in my position would see employee costs going down, i.e., we'd make more money.
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.