Why would an employer offer it when workers are mandated to purchase it privately?

really wants on their team to pick that company. I'm sure there are other reasons but you get the idea.

They'll also get to drop the administrator(s?) position and the hassle of administering and negotiating the program each year, and the pain of informing employees that they are getting a rate hike AND less coverage every year etc. etc.

Do you think a company is going to be altruistic on this?

I'm guessing most employers will be out of the health insurance game very quickly.

I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing - it will probably be the driver for single payer if it happens en masse.

and was going to reply re: it being a driver for single payer, but then you hit on it, so...yeah, what you said.

Why would business not dump one of their biggest expenses and make their company competetive with foreign companies that have NEVER had this expense...If they need a tax deduction so badly they can give their employees a pay increase..

What law prevents a company from making money off of its health plan?

Edited to add that if a company's health insurance plans could be a profit center, you wouldn't see ANY companies that didn't carry it. Which is why so many small businesses do not - its prohibitively expensive (full disclosure, I own and operate a small biz).

But I'd be very interested in seeing any company profile that you can locate that is actually making money having and administering a group health insurance company plan.

respectfully, you have two facts confused.
First, executive pension plans do not "make a profit"...the company isn't profiting from them. What they do do, however, is line the pocket of executives with even more money, but that isn't the same as being a profit center.

Second, health plans, which the ACA addresses, are different from retirement plans, which the ACA has nothing to do with. And health plans are also in no way a profit making endeavor for companies outside of ideally attracting talented employees which contribute to a company's profit.

It was an excerpt from an article. I didn't claim anything.

Retirement plans ARE HEALTH PLANS. And companies profit from them....as documented in the article and Ms. Schultz's book.

Now if a company is profiting from retiree plans, how do you know that they aren't profiting from the active employees?

You said, "But I'd be very interested in seeing any company profile that you can locate that is actually making money having and administering a group health insurance company plan."

Retiree plans are GROUP HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANY PLANS.

I answered your question.

Your article doesn't even single out health insurance plans specifically - it seems to be pointing the finger at executive pensions as the cause of retiree benefit plans drying up, even as it stipulates that yes those retiree group health insurance plans are in jeopardy. In fact, the whole article seems to indicate that retiree benefits are in big trouble, certainly not operating profitably.

Regardless of semantics, I believe my larger point - that companies will stop being in the health insurance business - is still valid. I think the hassle, risk and minimal (if any) financial reward for (however minority percentage of companies actually do have a profitable health insurance division) the company indicates that when they have a viable alternative they will stop offering it.

I can't find any stats on any company considering their group health insurance as a profit center. I read your link but even that doesn't seem to be making that case. That was my point. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

She documents how companies are using their RETIREE HEALTH PLANS (and pension plans) as profit centers.

It's all documented in her book.

So why should a company kill off a profit center?

That still doesn't mean that they operate it as a profit center. I haven't seen any company that operates like that - in fact most of them carry stop loss insurance because the nature of the demands on their reserve are so unpredictable they can't know if they will have enough funds to cover the claims in any given year.

If my memory serves me correctly, I could be mistaken on this.

I'm not seeing it.

...as the spouse of a cancer patient may I heartily suggest you GO FUCK YOURSELF..

someone should keep that video clip and use it against him in his next election

Idiots think benevolence is somehow a bad thing. Really shows where the morality and priorities lie.

WI. needs to get rid of this putz.

God, i loved the latest new show on HBO "Newsroom."

cancer victims either. And there will be a perfect RW world.

and just eliminate all health care all together.
Now, Senator Johnson, that will show you bagger buddies some tax savings

....any obligation toward other individuals in their society.

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."--John Kenneth Galbraith

This is the putz who bought his Senate seat and displaced Russ Feingold. I live in Wisconsin, and we only have one Senator now, Herb Kohl. Russ Feingold came to every one of our 72 counties every year and listened to us, his constituents. He actually listened. This guy, Mr. Fish Lips, will not meet with any of us. His aide even hung up on me when I asked when he was going to hold a meeting with his constituents. So, yeah, he's definitely a "Let 'em die" guy. Guess he forgets he's mortal, too.

At least you have one senator. Some states have 2 idiots like Johnson



And btw welcome to DU

I guess he spent too much time sniffing the fumes in his plastic factory.

He get's his climate data from the old farmers almanac which is so so wrong this year.

This guy is a stain on the fabric of the state.

Both DH and I recall being little kids and feeling so proud to meet our senator, William Proxmire.

Russ Feingold was a similar kind of Senator.

This whack job? Not so much.

I miss the time when Senators came down and mingled with the common folk and you could actually talk with them.

Dale Bumpers, who was at Jefferson-Jackson picnic in a small town called Little Flock, Arkansas (not Little Rock), and David Pryor, who gave a very interesting talk at the Holiday Inn in Springdale, Arkansas.

So I guess Johnson just wants WI to be as cruel as most of the states.

It also depends on the company concerned as well. I have had some horrible health issues over the last couple of years and I have had leave from work that was more than the 12 weeks that the Family & Medical Leave Act allows for with job protection. Whilst not legally obliged to do so they have kept me on, and covered my salary gaps.

I am in a RTW state - NC.

IMO, Mr. Johnson doesn't have a heart, or least in his statement expresses a complete lack of empathy towards seriously ill people battling cancer. It's a heartless statement anyway.

more important imo, than this particular rhetoric, though it is good in that it brings attention to a serious flaw in our systems.

But then I read this, and I'm tempted to wish it on mr. johnson

Republicans have no "plan" for health care in this country other than to ensure that they and theirs have convenient and unfettered access to all the best medical care while letting poor people go without necessary medical care and just die.

Allowing someone to decide the life or death of another person by denying health care to someone who has cancer. And Cancer isn't a death sentence anymore.

Just saying!

the life or death of another person with cancer is called practicing medicine without a license.

now let me pop some popcorn and watch your vortex of nonsensical word-fuckkery go.

people that hold cell phones to their ears, live under power lines, work withing 1,000 miles of a nuclear plant. This list could go on forever.

Insurance companies should only have to insure healthy people until they get sick. What a great industry.

from the for profit "health" insurance industry when his election comes up either directly or by indirect support via limitless issue advocacy advertising, thanks to Citizens United.

The funding from that support will come of the mandated premiums of a captured populace translating to profits for the "health" insurance industry.

Many of those people may detest the man, some of them may even be cancer patients but their money is going to support him thanks to the mandate.

That's what I'm talking about in regards to the mandate being a violation of the First Amendment with the for profit "health" insurance industry's ability to conduct speech on the expensive public sphere trumping those of the people via extorted financial means.

Thanks for the thread, DesertRat.

i`m drawing my medicare from everyone who has contributed to the system.

goppers in general are hateful assholes.

If we're going by what this nation was founded on...

He's such a tool.

That's pretty fucked up reasoning.

Rights simply are.

(The idiot is the senator, not the poster).

either that or fire them on Monday for not coming in on the weekend.

And his coverage is denied.

As if he and his would never get cancer. And there is no risk of that. And no risk of his losing everything he has. Because he's just so virtuous. These smug assholes.

HE is covered on the nice public plan he gets as a GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE.

To say that these heartless hypocrites make me want to vomit is an understatement.

and corporations want to reserve the right to FUCK YOU

Not directed to voters who did vote for Feingold of course

another repug moron, hypocrite and complete waste of air.

to be thrown in their face.

what an ass.

His right to think in such a twisted way is his right. I'm obligated to allow him that right- I'm NOT obligated to adopt his selfish perspective. We live in a SOCIETY- mr. Johnson. Deal with it.

...was the greatest.

When the company was shopping for a new, top o' the line health policy, the agent said that I would need to sign a waiver because I had cancer in the past, hypotension (low blood pressure), etc. My boss smiled and said, no...she doesn't. The agent looked perplexed and said that it was company policy. My boss (paraphrasing...it was a long time ago), "It may be your company policy, but my company policy is to take care of my employees. I have business cards from 4 other health insurance agents on my desk. We're buying the best policy that is offered with all the bells and whistles. One of those 4 business cards will insure my employee without a waiver."

We got the policy and I didn't need to sign a waiver. I had a heart attack less than 6 months later, which wouldn't have been covered if I had signed the waiver.

Edit: Forgot to mention...he's a Democrat. I guess that's sort of a "duh", huh?

of course, he is RICH. his daughter sure got care, but he doesn't give a shit about not rich people.
his right to be greedy.