Y2HH

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:18 PM) There was still no hook. There was never a requirement to offer a pension. There were only rules to be followed once a pension program was created. I feel like at this point there should be a joke made using the word hooker, but I'm not witty enough to make it. The point is, if companies can get away with offering less, they will...people bring up the talent issue, but most big companies can really care less for a vast majority of their positions. They want talent for certain specific areas, and they'll pay for it, but otherwise...they don't care if you graduated from college if you want the secretary job, that high school girl can type, too...only for 1/2 the salary.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:18 PM) ...so, when the public option comes out, and it sucks, why, exactly, will all employers dump their coverage without fear of talent leaving for places that don't dump coverage? Well first, according to Obama and followers of healthcare reform, it's not going to suck, it's going to be even better. And second, and more importantly, employers aren't fearful of their talent going anywhere right now, and they won't be for the foreseeable future. The vast majority of the employed aren't looking to job hop right now, because they may be hopping from a stable company to one that's bankrupt tomorrow. And when the unemployment rate begins to drop, companies get leverage to offer lower wages/benefits because of the vast number of people in need of jobs. This won't turn around anytime soon...and by the time it does, if the private insurance industry isn't still around, there is no going back.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:15 PM) They didn't get themselves off any hook. There never was a hook to begin with. There was a problem in the 1960s and 1970s where companies promised to give pensions that they had no intention of ever delivering on. Pensions weren't even regulated until 1974, and that's when the government started working to introduce things like IRAs and 401k. Until then, the pension could have been fully funded by the company's own stock or never actually funded. It wasn't until 1974 that there were rules governing how pensions had to be run so that the workers who were supposed to be protected by pensions could actually be sure they were protected by pensions. There was a hook after 1974 then, and they got themselves off of it.

Again, for the public record, I work for a health insurance company. I have a 401k that matches. I have awesome beyond belief health insurance. Oh, and I also have a pension.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:09 PM) And the ones that don't tend to get worse talent. And the companies that offer worse health benefits tend to get worse talent. Isn't this free market in all its glory? What's the problem? I don't see one.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 02:03 PM) Or maybe it came about because companies were promising pensions and never funding them. Just ask Studebaker. Whatever the case may be, the companies got themselves off the hook, and without increasing pay, put the onus on the employee to save for themselves without being required to assist. As some companies match 401k to a certain %, they are not required to do so.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE57U02B20090831 Way to trade on finite resource in for another. Since I really love irony, I really love this.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:55 PM) That's kind of my point - companies still have to compete for good employees, so there is always a balancing act. You cannot just say "its a cost, we'll drop it", all the way down. Eh, this is iffy. I've worked for many companies that took on lesser talent simply because they could offer them less. Some companies compete for good employees, but reality is, a lot are content with average employees that require below average pay.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:55 PM) Kap, those are two distinctly different words with very different meanings. I'm not playing a semantics game. I'm making sure the correct words are actually used. Words mean specific things. Yes, they'll have the same options as you. I've never said otherwise. They won't be receiving free or guaranteed coverage any more than you will. Well that's reassuring his fears.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:54 PM) I think you might be able to trace that to the decline of labor organizing movements than you can the advent of social security. Also, weren't there things like 401ks and IRAs that came about in the late 1970s that had more to do with the elimination of a pension than Social Security? I think the intention was to replace pensions and act as a safety net for a broken SS system -- as if we believe what people say -- social security is broke, and payments are getting lower and it won't exist soon (now I personally believe that's BS, but whatever).

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:50 PM) First, if this was true, then companies would provide no benefits and pay minimum wage for all jobs. Obviously that is not the case, so also obviously, there is clearly something different going on here. It is simply part of the benefits package. And as time has gone on, companies are in fact offering MORE benefits (and less salary) than they had previously. And as I said earlier, the only time they will drop coverage is in truly dire circumstances, which is no different (or little different) than it is today. By the way, here is something to throw out there... IMO, the ultimate solution to this whole problem is not government-provided healthcare, nor is it employee-provided health care. Chew on that for a minute. Um, if they could, they would. I don't want less salary and more benefits...you obvious do, but I do not. I want my money.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:49 PM) But I thought pensions were bad. Isn't that why the auto industry went bankrupt, because the unions wouldn't let them adapt to the new economy and dump their pensions? Plenty of people got pensions well beyond Social Security's introduction - generations beyond it in fact. No pensions = better bottom line for a company. Why would they offer such things unless forced?

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:46 PM) The public plan isn't a free social safety net like welfare. How so? If I'm unemployed or cannot afford private insurance or afford to pay for this public option, it's subsidized for me...or anyone else. So how can you say that? This plan is the definition of a safety net.

QUOTE (Rex Kicka** @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:45 PM) They could simply find a way to make money off of it. Maybe market to opponents of the health care proposals? Or are you admitting that you'd immediately take advantage of the same things you don't want to see enacted? I'd be forced too, since I'd be unemployed.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:41 PM) Interesting analogy, since the combination of 401k's and social security are much better for everyone involved than pensions. The only way employers start begging off insurance offerings in any great numbers are if: --They are deep financial trouble (in which case they might do that anyway) --The government plan somehow becomes a truly better alternative, which I find doubtful --Unemployment gets to some ridiculous number like 20% and employees lose all leverage Healthcare is currently used as an incentive for people at jobs, they're often willing to accept less pay for good insurance, however, people wouldn't be willing to do that anymore if they know they can just fall back onto a public plan (which is touted to be just as good, with the same quality care as the private alternatives.) Even if it's not the same quality, people will take $ over stock options, just like they will take $ over insurance if they know there is something else out there for them. It's the same reason why most contractors who do not have company sponsored insurance don't bother getting insurance, despite making 80+$ an hour. The entire time I worked as a contractor, I was the only person out of 6 of us that bothered getting insurance and we all made, at minimum, 43$ an hour.

QUOTE (southsider2k5 @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:38 PM) I think the point is that people will be forced to switch to it because Employers will quit offering it as an option, just like they have quit offering pensions after social security came around. AND WE HAVE A WINNER.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:37 PM) THEN PEOPLE WON'T ALL SWITCH TO IT. Your argument is self-refuting. Also, employers now can say "f*** off, get your own." They don't do that because it allows them to retain better talent while paying less payroll taxes. Wow. Just...wow. Now, go back and re-read what Kap said, and what I reiterated, and that you ignored multiple times. Then, maybe you'll see the only argument here self-refuting is your own non-argument, since you ignored why we said people would be forced onto the public plan in the first place.

QUOTE (kapkomet @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:34 PM) Ok, the GOP is using it as a talking point, so it MUST NOT be true. End of story. It's not true, and we are both too dumb to understand why. Good thing we have the guns, Kap. We will win this thing no matter what.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:33 PM) Your problem here seems to be that the government option will be so bad ass everyone will leave the private plans and they won't even have a chance to react. If its really going to be that good, what on earth is the problem? It won't be that good. Kap just showed you why. Why would a company choose to pay for private care for their employees when they can just say, nah...go on the public plan, we aren't doing it.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:28 PM) Also, "they'll lose their jobs" is a pretty s***ty argument against progression. Buggy makers lost their jobs when cars came around. Steam boat builders lost their jobs when diesel engines were put into ships. Etc. etc. You call this progression. Heh. The government taking something over is not progression, it's regression.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:27 PM) Would private plans evaporate over night? They wouldn't last long with a mass exodus of companies and private citizens jumping to the public option... Hell, most insurance companies already laid off people because of the downturn in the economy and they were the most resilient part of it.

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:23 PM) Wouldn't the government then need to hire a s***load of people to help them with the influx of people that need to be covered? So that would happen overnight?! And everyone that lost their jobs would be guaranteed new ones...or do you think that these jobs would go to friends of friends who happen to have government connections? And isn't this what we were trying to reform in the first place, taking the administrtive work out of it to make it cheaper? Sounds like the government just took over insurance and made it the latest government works project for employing people who do almost nothing.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:23 PM) But government suxors at everything, so it won't be as good and people will stick with private plans. And, for the millionth time, it won't be free. Its not advertised as free. Its not legislated as free. If enough people want their private insurance, it'll stick around. It sticks around in Canada. And France. And the UK. And Germany. and just about every other place that has a much larger public system than what's being proposed. But the government doesn't suxors at this! They promised the quality of care will be the same or even higher for less money! Now I know that's not how the really real world works, but they're still saying it...

QUOTE (BigSqwert @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:19 PM) Are you in the habit of reading most congressional bills? How does this one compare to others that you have read? This one is prominent enough that I actually looked at it. And although I can't say I know from first hand knowledge, from what I understand, since most of these modern bills are being written by lawyers for lawyers, they're all like this now... Which is pretty frightening.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Aug 31, 2009 -> 01:16 PM) And I answered. If the public option offers the exact same coverage for a lower cost, most people will choose the public option. What is wrong with that? Does freedom rely on paying more for inferior services? So then stop saying/repeating that people can keep their private insurance, because there is no way that's reality if everyone ditches it for something "free", which will NOT be free by any stretch, especially if you toss 320+Million people on that free plan. Also, if what you're saying is true, congratulations, private health insurance folds, and you have millions upon millions of unemployed workers.