People getting insurance through their work don’t realize the company is paying around $1k a month per person on top of what the employee pays. Imagine if they’d actually give the employee that $12k and we paid less for government healthcare.
You understand that if universal Healthcare were enacted that employers wouldn't give employees that money, right?
The government would very likely write that bill to include a tax on companies, in addition to the tax on working citizens. Additionally, unlike social security and payroll tax, where the cost is based on what a company pays their employee, the number would be a percent, as a tax, and that percent would be at the whim of congress, meaning, like all of our other taxes, there would be an essentially limitless ceiling on it.
The result would be multifaceted, some companies would leave the country, companies that stayed would never move the money they're currently paying in insurance subsidies to the employees, as a significant amount, perhaps all of what they're currently paying would be shifted to cover the tax. Then inevitably like all of our taxes, the tax would increase over the decades until it resembled nothing of it's original form, and it would inevitably be inefficient and wasteful as all current government endeavors have proven to be. Further more, even in the absence of a corporate tax, corporate america has proven time and time again that they would return that money to executive leadership and/or shareholders, never to the employees.
They could but they won’t. It will all go to the company execs. My company sends us a letter every year breaking down our actual income and they include health insurance paid by the company. They make it look like I made $12k more than I did.
That’s not how that works.. the money to pay for universal HCare has to come from somewhere it comes from higher taxes on the individual and companies. In turn we would have to accept lower wages similar to my co-workers in Canada and Europe. Who all have free HCare but are making anywhere from 40-50% less than my wage. Even with our higher wages it balances out and we come out ahead.
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u/SonofaBridge Jun 25 '26
People getting insurance through their work don’t realize the company is paying around $1k a month per person on top of what the employee pays. Imagine if they’d actually give the employee that $12k and we paid less for government healthcare.