Re: Papa Johns' CEO: Obamacare will increase our costs, reduce employee hours
So then why don't we take the burden off of business and have government run health insurance. And I don't mean socialized medicine. I asked that question earlier in the thread. It's a question, not a statement.
Because if there is any third-party payer who is going to be a worse stand-in for the individual purchaser than an employer, it's the government.
I have government health insurance. It sucks. Oh, it has limitless coverage, I'm sure. If I get really expensive cancer, it will pay for all the third-rate care I can possibly handle. But it's also a bureaucratic nightmare. It took me
two years to convince those people that the woman on my
marriage certificate who was also listed as the
mother of my child was, in fact, my
wife. In the meantime, I was trying to dodge thousands and thousands of dollars of bills from having a child which they were
obligated to pay for, but
refused to do so.
Her father was a retiree, you see... so she had already
had TriCare as a
secondary.... and once you are
already in the system, I mean, you're
in the system so, I mean, why would you change... I mean, it's not like you can be both
one persons
daughter and another persons
wife... I mean.... she's already in the
system.... you see..... so..... :roll:
THEN they accused me of fraud and threatened me because the hospital had originally billed them for a "Baby Smith" (my last name isn't smith, but I'm using it as a stand-in), and I was trying to claim a child whose first name was not "Baby". You see, "Baby" was already
in the system... sooooo...... [/rant].
Where I live, I'm only allowed to use a single hospital, which is about 40 minutes away. If I want to use closer facilities, there is one, but it's for non-emergency healthcare only. So I have to go down to the hospital, get my primary switched over to the closer facility which cannot actually provide anything close to a full range of healthcare, then drive back up to the closer facility, then get the healthcare, then drive back down to the hospital and get it switched
back so if there is an emergency or I need healthcare after 1600 or on a weekend I can still get a someone to stitch me back up.
The Hospital is not exactly state of the art. We had a friend have a baby there last July - she got a nice cot, the husband got a stool. There was no air conditioning. We live on a tropical island. Imagine having your child (and then trying to rest afterwards) in 90 degree heat with 100% humidity.
U.S. companies compete with other nations who do not burden their companies with employee healthcare. That seems to me an advantage.
For businesses that is correct. Ditto for the fact that we compete with other nations who burden their companies with a lower corporate tax rate. Less so for the individuals who bear a higher tax burden to pay for an inefficient healthcare system.
*again, putting on my asbestos under wear for asking what might be a naive question*
no flame retardation necessary. You are absolutely right that we need to move away from employer-provided health insurance. We just need to move to an actual
insurance model of
individually purchased health insurance, just like we do for auto, house, and life insurance.
