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Would A Single Payer Healthcare System Decrease Employment?

Would a single payer healthcare system decrease employment?

  • Yes

    Votes: 3 30.0%

  • No

    Votes: 6 60.0%

  • Other

    Votes: 1 10.0%
  • Total voters
    10
Moderate Right

Moderate Right

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Just read a poll thread about healthcare and this question popped into my mind. Since most Americans get their health insurance through their employers, if a single payer system was developed where people had healthcare whether they worked or not, what's to stop them from saying, "I quit"? Isn't employer based healthcare an incentive to work? Would it increase social programs for those who had no incentive to work any more? If less people worked, less taxes would be collected, which would fund the single payer system and those social programs as well. Would the national debt skyrocket? What say you? Obviously, I voted yes.
 
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Moderate Right said:
Just read a poll thread about healthcare and this question popped into my mind. Since most Americans get their health insurance through their employers, if a single payer system was developed where people had healthcare whether they worked or not, what's to stop them from saying, "I quit"? Isn't employer based healthcare an incentive to work? Would it increase social programs for those who had no incentive to work any more? If less people worked, less taxes would be collected, which would fund the single payer system and those social programs as well. Would the national debt skyrocket? What say you? Obviously, I voted yes.
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You Sir are out of date...47% get insurance through their employeer, and that is going down fast.

Where America gets its health coverage: everything you wanted to know in one handy chart - LA Times
 
Moderate Right said:
Just read a poll thread about healthcare and this question popped into my mind. Since most Americans get their health insurance through their employers, if a single payer system was developed where people had healthcare whether they worked or not, what's to stop them from saying, "I quit"? Isn't employer based healthcare an incentive to work? Would it increase social programs for those who had no incentive to work any more? If less people worked, less taxes would be collected, which would fund the single payer system and those social programs as well. Would the national debt skyrocket? What say you? Obviously, I voted yes.
Click to expand...

Other. The "I quit" option requires Medicaid expansion for most since low/no income alone does not qualify one for that "free" insurance. Since we have no idea what you mean by "single payer" (outside of existing government subsidized systems) it is a tricky question to answer. I would expect "single payer" to be as much of a complex mess as we now have - several government "options" based on all manner of strange social engineering standards in order to "qualify".
 
Moderate Right said:
Just read a poll thread about healthcare and this question popped into my mind. Since most Americans get their health insurance through their employers, if a single payer system was developed where people had healthcare whether they worked or not, what's to stop them from saying, "I quit"? Isn't employer based healthcare an incentive to work? Would it increase social programs for those who had no incentive to work any more? If less people worked, less taxes would be collected, which would fund the single payer system and those social programs as well. Would the national debt skyrocket? What say you? Obviously, I voted yes.
Click to expand...

It would but not for the reason you stated, insurance companies invest heavily in many markets. They are tied directly to our economy. If we cut insurance companies out it would likely cause a stock market crash.
 
Moderate Right said:
Just read a poll thread about healthcare and this question popped into my mind. Since most Americans get their health insurance through their employers, if a single payer system was developed where people had healthcare whether they worked or not, what's to stop them from saying, "I quit"? Isn't employer based healthcare an incentive to work? Would it increase social programs for those who had no incentive to work any more? If less people worked, less taxes would be collected, which would fund the single payer system and those social programs as well. Would the national debt skyrocket? What say you? Obviously, I voted yes.
Click to expand...

I'd say probably not looking at the employment to population ratios of various countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment-to-population_ratio
 
ThoughtEx. said:
It would but not for the reason you stated, insurance companies invest heavily in many markets. They are tied directly to our economy. If we cut insurance companies out it would likely cause a stock market crash.
Click to expand...

I've said that same thing a number of times.
 
There are probably some immediately pre-Medicare folks who are still in the labor force solely for access to health insurance, perhaps some miscellaneous others (e.g., a secondary earner in a household) who literally need nothing from employment beyond insurance. Beyond those cases, I doubt this would be a particularly common story. Most people like/need the income they get from working, too.

As for revenues, I wouldn't be too worried about that. The entire reason we have an employer-based system is the tax exclusion on ESI. In other words, our employment-based system has been artificially holding down tax collections for over 60 years. JCT put the value of those foregone taxes at $323 billion last year.
 
No. Quitting your job means having to find insurance on your own, and that might be tricky considering you don't have the benefit of having an employer to vouch for your health.
 
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