Post

it sounds simple but that basically is all we need. the whole private system is backstopped by public dollars and regulations in hundreds of ways, it's obscenely inefficient and it doesn't even cover everyone bsky.app/profile/equi...

This post is unavailable.

peoplespolicyproject.orgNew Poll Finds Voters Strongly Oppose Employer InsuranceOnly 11 percent of voters think employers should be able to change their insurance.

interesting poll on this btw. if you ask people about whether people should be able to lose their employer-based insurance--the only way ESI could possibly work--they're against it 70-11 www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2019/10/24/n...

peoplespolicyproject.orgEmployer-Sponsored Insurance Rips People's Insurance AwayIf we want to stop taking insurance away from people, we need single-payer healthcare.

and that is not a trivial number of people, there are on the order of 60 million job separations annually www.peoplespolicyproject.org/2017/08/08/e...

11/8/26, 2:17 pm8 reposts73 likes

leemarvinoswald.bsky.social

@leemarvinoswald.bsky.social

I didn't even have to change jobs to have my insurance ripped away. Been at a place for 8 years with company health insurance that covers dependents. Suddenly, they decided to stop that - effectively kicking my family off their insurance and gave me 72 hours to figure out new coverage.

Real countries that embrace private (nonprofit) health insurance cover the employer-side premiums when a worker is unemployed, require insurers to cover everything (approved by the national board), & control costs w/ all-payer bargaining. The US is behind the state of the art even here.

Katie Cannon

@katiecannon.bsky.social

Krug has been taking MMT more seriously As evidenced by having Nathan Tankus on his podcast where Krug humbly admitted he doesn’t understand how our monetary system works

Sandra Catania

@sandra313.bsky.social

@perseverus-getout.bsky.social

Employer insurance evolved from amazing (think Detroit UAW negotiated benefits in the 60s-90s) to absolute garbage (high deductible plans). A lot of retired people got those awesome union benefits and don’t realize how bad things have gotten.

I am a cliché

On a per capita basis the US spends twice as much as its next competitor Germany. But the main driver of excess cost remains price. Not sure how to fix that.

Two main drivers: admin/complexity, & price. You address price w/ higher bargaining power, either single-payer or regional/national all-payer.

@perseverus-getout.bsky.social

All-payer also reduces complexity bcs it creates a single fee schedule that all insurers & providers in a region must follow.

I am a cliché

Agree completely. Historically, the pitch has been to achieve savings through efficiencies, prevention, improved coordination, etc. That won’t get us there. Managing price reductions is going to get ugly. Too many believe they have a right to get filthy rich in this sector. (I live in MA.)

Yup iirc one of Obama's pitches for cost reduction was "technology". Actually, that tends to do the opposite! But those are good cost increases.

It’s a TBex

@timbeckel.bsky.social

60 million?! 1/3rd of the workforce quits or loses their job annually? That seems nuts to me but it might be a little misleading because that must include seasonal, temporary jobs, part-timers, etc. I agree with the overall point, but this portrays quite a high level of instability-seems inaccurate

you could try reading the article, the statistics are described in it

It’s a TBex

@timbeckel.bsky.social

Yes I read it - it does not really address what I'm saying. I guess a better way of thinking about it is that the aggregate total number of employed people in a given year is lower than the aggregate total number of jobs in a given year. Not sure if FRED has that data.