Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • Debbie Young
  • Jimmy Buffett
  • Key West
  • Your Survival Guy
  • How We Are Different
  • Paris
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • The Great Reset
  • The Swiss Way
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • Dick Young
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool
  • Anti-Gun Control
  • Anti-Digital Currency
  • Joel Salatin and Alfie Oakes
  • World Gold Mine Production
  • Fidelity and Vanguard Since 1971

Your Health Insurance—Get the Boss Out

July 15, 2014 By Debbie Young

Debs-PhotoWhy is it that your boss is determining what health-care package is right for you, asks Michael D. Tanner, a senior fellow at Cato Institute. Mr. Tanner explains that health insurance was offered as a perk during WWII. Because of the significant worker shortage, President Roosevelt imposed wage and price controls, which prevented employers from competing for workers by raising salaries. As a way around this, employers offered non-wage benefits, including health insurance, to woo workers.

In 1953, the IRS’s ruling that employer-provided health insurance was not taxable exacerbated the problem. Rather than raising salaries (taxable), employers began offering health insurance (nontaxable) to workers.

Mr. Tanner reminds readers that two problems arise with employer-based health insurance: (1) It hides the true costs of health care and can lead to overuse of health benefits. (2) Health insurance is often not portable. If you should lose your job, you might also lose your health insurance, especially if you have a preexisting condition.

But what is more insidious, using Hobby Lobby as an example, is that your boss has the power to determine what is or is not part of your insurance plan. As Mr. Tanner notes, “The government’s answer, of course, is simply to mandate that certain benefits, in this case contraceptives, be included. But that merely substitutes the government’s judgment for your boss’s. Thus we infringe on your employer’s desires and your own, leaving both of you at the mercy of politicians.”

Read here from Mr. Tanner what changes need to be made to the tax treatment of health insurance and why both the right and left, in a perfect world, could “agree to start transitioning away from employer-provided insurance and into a system where each of us owns personal and portable insurance, independent of our job.”

Employer-provided insurance is problematic for several reasons. Most significantly, it hides much of the true cost of health care from consumers, encouraging over consumption. Basing insurance on employment also means that if you lose your job, you are likely to end up uninsured. And once you’ve lost insurance, it can be hard to get new coverage, especially if you have a pre-existing condition.

But, in the context of Hobby Lobby, employer-provided insurance is even more insidious: It gives your boss the power to determine what is and is not included in your insurance plan. The government’s answer, of course, is simply to mandate that certain benefits, in this case contraceptives, be included. But that merely substitutes the government’s judgment for your boss’s. Thus we infringe on your employer’s desires and your own, leaving both of you at the mercy of politicians.

Instead of fighting over religious liberty vs. contraceptive coverage, both sides should agree to start transitioning away from employer-provided insurance and into a system where each of us owns personal and portable insurance, independent of our job.

Getting there requires changing the tax treatment of health insurance so that employer-provided insurance is treated the same as other compensation for tax purposes: that is, as taxable income. At the same time, to offset the increased tax, workers should receive a standard deduction, a tax credit, or expanded Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), regardless of whether they receive insurance through their job or purchase it on their own.

As a result of this shift in tax policy, employers would gradually substitute higher wages for insurance, allowing workers to shop for the insurance policy that most closely match their needs. That insurance would be more likely to be true insurance — protecting the worker against catastrophic risk, while requiring out-of-pocket payment for routine, low-dollar costs. And it would belong to the worker, not the employer, meaning that workers would be able to take it from job to job and would not lose it if they became unemployed.

But it would also mean that workers, not their bosses, would decide what benefits they want to pay for. People could have contraceptive coverage or any other kind of coverage if we wanted it and were willing to pay for it.

If you’re willing to fight for Main Street America, click here to sign up for the Richardcyoung.com free weekly email.

Related Posts

  • Democrats Try to Stop Short Term Health Insurance Coverage
  • Obama Promises To Lower Health Insurance Premiums by $2,500 Per Year
  • The Health of Cities
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Debbie Young
Debbie, editor-in-chief of Richardcyoung.com, has been associate editor of Dick Young’s investment strategy reports for over five decades. When not in Key West, Debbie spends her free time researching and writing in and about Paris and Burgundy, France, cooking on her AGA Cooker, driving her Porsche Boxter S through Vermont and Maine, and practicing yoga.
Latest posts by Debbie Young (see all)
  • Lack of Demand for EVs - December 8, 2023
  • A Thin Line Between Civilization and Barbarity - December 7, 2023
  • The Viability Snag in EVs - December 6, 2023

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • Joel Salatin Can Help Americans Beat Food Inflation
  • “An Epic Struggle Over the Definition of America”
  • “The Losses are Taking a Toll on Their Health”
  • The Claremont Institute: Protecting the American Way of Life
  • Boom—Your Life Changes
  • Gstaad and the Swiss Way
  • Your Survival Guy’s 2022 Super States: #1 New Hampshire
  • Democracy & Diversity: Not In the Constitution
  • RAPPOPORT: War Applauded by “Stone Cold Utopians”
  • Who Is Alex Jones?

Compensation was paid to utilize rankings. Click here to read full disclosure.

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Wellesley Fund: “Balanced Investing Is Dead” (Please Stop)
  • Investing Habits of the Fairly Wealthy: #2 Coach
  • Digital Dollars: A Warning Where You’re the Prey
  • Panama Canal Traffic Jam Could Soon Affect Global Energy Markets
  • Signs the Job Market Is Weakening
  • Don’t Make Moves You Might Regret
  • Ruling: Major Egg Producers Conspired to Drive Up Prices
  • Can China Save Itself from a Debt Collapse?
  • Companies Scoop up Truck Terminals at Yellow’s Bankruptcy Auction
  • Your Key to Retirement Wealth

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Wellesley Fund: “Balanced Investing Is Dead” (Please Stop)
  • Do You Have a Plan to Protect Your Personal Data?
  • DIRTY JOBS: America Needs Mining Engineers
  • Investing Habits of the Fairly Wealthy: #2 Coach
  • Have All of New Jersey’s Workers Already Moved to Florida?
  • Georgia Accelerates Implementation of Its Flat Tax Plan
  • Digital Dollars: A Warning Where You’re the Prey
  • You Can See Where Big Government Is Headed
  • You Can’t Escape a Digital Dollar
  • Don’t Make Moves You Might Regret

US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

Five Year Treasury Yield

“The Economy Is Buried Under Trillions in Debt”

Lack of Demand for EVs

Wellesley Fund: “Balanced Investing Is Dead” (Please Stop)

Biden Border Crisis Is a National Security Threat

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives