Health Care and Cable
Before I get started, I want to throw a disclaimer out: Generally speaking, I despise talking about politics. It’s pointless, and all it does is get people riled up and pissed off, because — from my experience, at least — no one ever agrees on anything. I also have other things going on in my life that I’d rather devote my time to, like work, my family, relaxing, whatever. I don’t want to sit around and listen to someone get bitchy because things would be so much better if so-and-so were running things. And, for what it’s worth, if I absolutely had to label myself as one or the other, I’m probably more of a liberal than a conservative. I don’t think it’s right to pigeonhole one’s self into one category or the other, but everyone else seems to think you have to, so what the hell.
That said, I’ve been doing some thinking about the recent health care debate because of some comments that a friend of mine posted on Facebook. Actually, let me narrow that down: it’s a single aspect of it, and a single comment (one that I’ve heard thrown about in a few other corners of the internet as well).
My understanding — and I well could be wrong in this — is that the new health care legislation will mandate that companies provide health insurance for their employees, or they’ll be fined. If this is wrong, well, the rest of this post is probably invalid, so go ahead and skip it. I’m going to continue on the assumption that it’s correct though.
The argument I’ve heard against that is that the fine will be less than the cost of providing health insurance for the employees, so companies that currently provide insurance are going to just drop it like a bad habit.
At first glance, there’s some sense in that: why pay (for example) $300 a month per employee, when I can just shell out $150 (or whatever) a month to the government for each employee? As a business owner, you’d have to be stupid to want to pay more to provide health insurance, if you could get away with paying a smaller amount to the government as a penalty, right?
Or — how about this — what if you could get by with paying nothing at all, either to the government or to the insurance companies? Let the employees themselves foot the bill for their own health coverage. From a business perspective, wouldn’t that be best of all? Hell yeah, I say — that eliminates a hefty chunk of overhead right there. Guess what though: you can do that right now.
As far as I’m aware, there’s no federal requirement for a company to provide health care (and if I’m wrong on that, let me know, cause I’ve got a few companies I’ve worked for that would have a decent lawsuit coming). And yet, strangely enough, companies do pay X-amount-of-dollars to make sure their employees have health, dental, optical, even life insurance. It helps the employee out, makes them more loyal, and it’s definitely something that a lot of people consider when they’re looking for a job.
But, from what I hear, if this bill gets passed, companies are going to stop their benefits packages and through money at the government instead, simply because it’ll be less money. Never mind that the money no longer provides anything for their employees — and then to the company, in a way. Never mind that they’ll have to worry about whether their employees get sick and can’t get reasonable health care, so they end up taking more time off than they would have had they been able to get appropriate medical treatment. And never mind that their employees will be more willing to jump ship if there happens to be another company with an opening that just happens to provide some kind of benefits package.
It’s cheaper to pay the government than to pay for health insurance, so that’s what we’ll do, right?
Let’s look at it another way, in a more personal light, since I’m betting most anyone who reads this is more of a person than a company. For example’s sake, let’s say you pay $30 a month for basic cable. The next bill that gets passed mandates that everyone must have basic cable (at least), or else they pay a $10 fine. What would you do? Would you drop your cable — something you’re already paying for every month, and something that you use — just because you can pay $10 instead of $30, although you then wouldn’t have any cable? (If you would, why the hell are you even paying for cable in the first place?)
The way I see it, the companies affected by this bill — in this manner, at least — would break up into three categories:
- Those already providing health insurance for their employees. These companies would just say “Fuck it, I’m already paying it every month, it makes my employees happy. Doesn’t matter to me.”
- Those companies that are either too small to afford or too cheap to provide health insurance for their employees. These guys will just pay the fine.
- Those companies in the middle who aren’t providing health insurance but could. These guys could go either way, but I’d wager they’d be more apt to put their money into something that could give them returns (i.e. benefit packages for their employees) than just throw it away to the government.
This argument is a case-in-point as to why I hate politics. As soon as some of the facts come out, everyone just flies off the handle and makes assumptions without bothering to try and think about what could really happen. 9 times out of 10, things won’t change as drastically as everyone fears. And instead of trying to come up with a better compromise, people just get angry. Let’s say the original argument was really what would happen — why not lobby to raise the fine to a point where it would be better for the companies to provide benefits? No, because that would be giving in to those damned, bleeding-heart, socialist/commie/hippie liberals.
On the other hand…
Your Argument is Invalid
A Milestone or A Starting Point
I’ve never really been much for politics, which (this past year especially) has always put me at a bit of a disadvantage in the blogosphere. I don’t keep up with either side; hell, I get confused as to what “left” and “right” are most of the times. If I had to be pressed to call myself something, it’d probably be a moderate liberal, but the truth is I don’t really care too much one way or the other.
That said, even though I’m probably one of the few people who won’t be watching today’s inauguration, I’m definitely happy I got to see this day. It was something I remember thinking about even in elementary school, wondering if there’d ever be an African-American president.
I grew up in towns where white people were pretty much the minority, and being white, it put a different perspective on things; I never really thought much was different when it came to race, and always wondered what the problem was. As I grew up, I started to understand that there was a problem, but still, even to this day, I don’t understand why. Today though, a barrier is being broken, and hopefully more people will start to see past the color of one’s skin.
That’s how I’m looking at today. I know a lot of people consider it a milestone, as proof that we have come a long way – and it’s true, we really have. We’re a far cry from the nation that once forced blacks to sit at the back of the bus and had separate (but “equal”) drinking fountains. But I still look at it as something more akin to Jackie Robinson stepping up to the plate for the first time; yes, it’s a milestone, but it’s also a chance to show people that color doesn’t mean squat.
I would say that I hope Obama does a good enough job to make that very obvious, but seriously: look at the shoes he’s stepping into. Succeeding Bush? Hell, even I could run the country and look like a damned good president after that. If he were succeeding Kennedy or FDR or something, that’d be a bit different of a story. But I don’t think he’s going to have a hard time looking good in W’s shadow…
Okay, that’s my political post for the year.
Catch you on the flip side.
–Matt
Networked Blogs (on Facebook)
