I wish employers did not provide health insurance, even though I have a chronic medical condition. The choices of plans offered by companies is far, far smaller than the choices available to me on the open market. I don't want to have to find new health insurance if my employment situation changes, possibly leaving me with a gap in coverage. The expectation that employer-provided benefits are at no cost to the employee is a fallacy - if companies did not offer health care as a perk, they would be able to offer higher salaries instead.
The only reason American employers are in the business of offering health insurance is because they get a federal tax break. This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals. Given this, if my employer stopped offering insurance, they couldn't increase my salary enough for me to purchase the same plan myself. I think this is unfair - I would like to get the same tax break myself, or at least eliminate the tax break altogether so I am on an even playing field with businesses. This would allow me to purchase my own health insurance at rates comparable to what I'm offered at work.
Considering the tax situation, it's curious that Intuit would not choose to take this tax break. It seems like a short term move that allows them to cut costs while exploiting the economic stickiness of employment. This move makes them less competitive for employees in the labor market, but that only affects them in the long term. In the short term, the employees they have will be hesistant and slow to find new jobs.
> if companies did not offer health care as a perk, they would be able to offer higher salaries instead.
Prices, including labor prices, are not determined by costs. There is no indication at all that companies would compensate employees more if they didn't have to pay for their health insurance. What is most likely to happen is that companies will pocket the difference, in the same way they've been pocketing the difference from increased productivity while letting wages become stagnant.
> The choices of plans offered by companies is far, far smaller than the choices available to me on the open market.
Maybe I wasn't searching correctly, but I was recently discussing healthcare and taxes with someone and briefly searched on the Healthcare.gov exchange to look at prices. There were only three PPO plans (where you can freely go to any doctor in network), and all three were HDHPs, all from the same company. There were many HMO plans, some HDHP and others with low deductibles, but often extremely small local networks and limited choice of both PCPs and specialists.
> This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals.
One other thing to note in your analysis is that most large employers are not buying any insurance, but actually self-insuring (funding the claims out of their own pool of money). So the employers are actually acting as insurance companies for their workers, rather than simply buying and reselling commercial insurance.
There would be additional considerations beyond taxes in analyzing whether this type of insurance is more economically optimal, for example, the fact that each company has a distinct risk pool which may not be similar to the general population, depending on the company.
> The only reason American employers are in the business of offering health insurance is because they get a federal tax break
The cost of paying me is also tax deductible, so they get a 'tax break' by paying me more money.
> This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals.
I don't think that's the root. Large insurance companies seem to want to sell to larger companies - groups of people - vs selling insurance to individuals. Selling to a group is where it seems some price reduction happens. And... by and larger, if you're selling insurance to people who are already healthy enough to be working regularly/fulltime, your costs for insuring that 'pool' will be somewhat cheaper than the costs of insuring any random individual.
> they couldn't increase my salary enough for me to purchase the same plan myself
If the cost of my health insurance was deductible from my individual taxes, then the entire market would be turned upside down. There are certain thresholds that need to be met re MAGI (IIRC) before health insurance insurance premiums are deductible by individuals. I'm "self employed" so the entirety of my premiums are tax deductible, but for the average person working a W2 job someplace that doesn't provide health insurance for them, it's not a deductible expense, which is a total sham.
But why do you have to think about this at all? Wouldn't it just be easier that this was provided by the state, so that all citizens could afford getting necessary health care. At the same time it would relive you of having to compare coverage, copays, deductibles or in general understand the full fine print of your insurance agreements. Most comparable industrial countries have found a pretty decent solution to this where you move the financial burden of many basic services (health care, schooling, etc.) from the public, over to the government - allowing all citizens to benefit from these, without having to wonder if the can afford it.
The amount of time we have to spend each year sorting out our healthcare for the entire company is mind blowing. You are totally correct, it becomes a full time job for 3 or 4 weeks for myself and another partner. So much effort and knowledge required for something that isn’t even our core business! And it inevitably causes drama with employees who don’t like some part of the group plans we end up with. Very stressful.
We only offer it as our employees all say that this benefit is really important to them. I didn’t know it was a tax break for us to be honest.
I wish more employees thought like you did. Our average monthly cost per employee is about $500 for a “silver” PPO plan, and about $110 for dental. Average age of our employees is below 30.
I’d gladly pay employees the $610 extra a month just so we don’t have to deal with it and the drama that comes with it. This would actually save us money from the energy wasted dealing with insurance companies. And no one who’s dealt with our insurance plans over the years has had a positive experience. My brother (who worked for my company) cut his chin while out of state. Required 2 stitches, and he just walked to the closest ER to get them. $3500 it ended up costing him, even with our insurance and countless hours fighting the insurance companies too. Didn’t even see a doctor, a nurse did the stitches. It’s a joke.
Other than salaries, health insurance is the largest expense for our business. Think about that at the scale of the entire economy and its mind blowing the wasted energy/effort on this “system”.
I’m originally from Australia. We have “socialized” healthcare there. My brother is back visiting family currently and got an x-ray and ultra sound for $310. The American system is absolutely embarrassing.
Never underestimate the evil of HR. It’s a way to offload headcount without a layoff.
They probably agreed to not layoff Mailchimp employees in the sale, so they make them quit. Purging the sick, tbe pregnant, etc from the company is a way to cut costs, and doing so through some elaborate bureaucratic fuckup avoids government intervention.
> I wish employers did not provide health insurance, even though I have a chronic medical condition.
I've had multiple open heart surgeries. My medical events are relatively rare (every couple years) and I recently went completely septic for 4 days (started to have multiple organ failure ~3 days from no-return) due to a cascade of underlying issues. I know my medical coverage and it's been critical to my survival for my entire life.
I have NEVER used employer health insurance and anyone with major medical conditions would be foolish to depend on employer coverage in most cases. The offered plans are basically a big deductible with some minor coverage for non-catastrophic, no surgical coverage, nothing chronic. More expensive plans cover more dependents. Gee thx. It's all but useless and I have simply declined it everywhere for the last 25 years to keep the ~25$/mo, as I have paid my own (car payment-sized) platinum level health insurance plan everywhere I've gone (and my wife's). The type of company - Finance, Medical, Marketing, Retail, Consulting (ironically the best I've found), doesn't make much of a difference. Every now and then you find some employer that will "cover your healthcare 100%" which is inevitably code for "cover the plans we choose, which aren't different than anyone else".
1. You can get some of the tax break if you use HDHP plan + HSA. It's limited to about 7K though, because if everybody would take big tax breaks, who'd pay for those trillion dollar bills they're passing every year now?
2. US healthcare system is incredibly hostile to people trying to pay their own costs and designed to be maximally obscure and confusing. Imagine buying a car where your car dealer, tire manufacturer, window glass manufacturer and upholstery supplier bill you separately. Now imagine when you come to the dealer and ask how much the car would cost, they shrug and tell you you'd know when the bills come, just relax and sign on the dotted line. If you really insist, they could give you an estimate - something between 1K and 100K dollars - but they don't guarantee anything, it's just an estimate. And no, you can't choose the suppliers upfront or know which ones they'd use - this you'd also know only when the bills come. And no, there's no way to know when or how it happens - they bills would just show up one day as a surprise. Sounds like a nice experience? That's how the healthcare system works, day to day.
3. The frustrating part is that most of the people think it's the only way to manage it, and those that don't think that the only way to fix it is to nationalize the whole thing. I mean we can create insanely complex supply chains (think how many people cooperated on making a car? And you still can come to a single place and pay for it with a simple transaction at cost known in advance - magic!) - but somehow healthcare is where it all disappears and figuring out the separation of labor thing becomes the problem of the end user.
I was under the impression (from being on the public market and later self-employed, company subsidized insurance which is altogether cheaper and better) that companies have pooling power which allows them to cut deals with insurers. Is that not the case?
The only reason American employers are in the business of offering health insurance is because they get a federal tax break. This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals
This is wrong on so many levels.
First, employers get a tax break because compensation expenses are generally deductible as "ordinary and necessary business expenses" required for the employer to be competitive in the labor market.
Second, employer policies are cheaper because the risk pool is cheaper to insure than the individual pool, so the insurers can make the same or more profits despite charging lower premiums.
The combined effect is to make employer-based health insurer significantly cheaper on both a pre-tax and post-tax basis than individual plans. But even without the tax benefit employers would still be incentivized to provide health benefits in a labor-competitive market. For example, many still provide free meals and parties to employees, even though meals are only partially deductible and parties are not deductible at all.
I don't know the US system at all, but here in France employee health insurance ("mutuelle") are mandatory. The main benefit is that the cost is the same for all employees, no matter their health condition, age, etc. Basically it's a solidarity thing which allows everyone in the company to be covered well for a reasonable price.
There is also another differentiator - companies buy insurance for all employees (i.e. in "bulk") when if everyone were to buy it privately, insurance companies will have to sell it in "retail". As is always the case with any business - bulk customers have preferential treatment, lower prices, better terms, you name it. Retail always pays it in full. While current employer based insurance model is broken, I don't think goin "full retail" will change the situation much. We'll end up in a situation similar to wireless service market - 3 major players with overpriced plans and lots of cheap MVNOs that stop having any coverage 5 miles down the highway.
> I would like to get the same tax break myself, or at least eliminate the tax break altogether so I am on an even playing field with businesses. This would allow me to purchase my own health insurance at rates comparable to what I'm offered at work.
Maybe not. Businesses have more negotiating power because they're bigger buyers, so they would still have access to more competitive rates. Unless you got together with a lot of people to negotiate together (and this might be a startup opportunity).
> The choices of plans offered by companies is far, far smaller than the choices available to me on the open market.
On the flip side, the cost my employer pays for my plan is far lower than they would bill me for it on the open market. Last time I looked at the individual market it was amazing how bad even plans for $500-1000 were! They could give me a raise exactly matching what they'd stop paying and I'd still lose out.
Edit to clarify: That's not a "this is cheaper to us after we account for the tax break." That's a "this is the rate it costs us" vs "this is the rate it would cost you" difference.
The negotiation power difference is real. Private market health insurance would need to be well-regulated or we'll all just get screwed even more.
Employers like this because it gives them power over employees and makes it more attractive than being an entrepreneur not just to save money on taxes.
They could offer higher salaries, but would they? And employers are able to negotiate better plans than you can get in the individual market. There's no way i could get the plan i have through my work for the about $12000 they spend on it.
But I agree, healthcare should be provided by the federal govt like in every other advanced nation
I don't quite understand what you're envisioning. Our system depends on many employers paying for health insurance. You would have to change a lot of things about our system for it to be decoupled.
In South Korea the healthcare premiums are split between employees and the employers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_South_Korea They don't have to negotiate group plans and maintaining coverage when switching jobs is pretty seamless.
There has to be a plan if employers stop providing insurance en masse, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to stop getting premiums from the source of personal income entirely. That seems to be a convenient place to get the kind of money that healthcare demands.
Better yet. The government should require all health prices be published online, with the same rate charged to all patients regardless of insurance provider.
Make this similar to gym membership. Let each person decide where to go based on cost and needs. With insurance remaining their for catastrophic events only.
"Considering the tax situation, it's curious that Intuit would not choose to take this tax break."
Intuit did provide health insurance to these employees and take the tax break. There was a small gap between when the previous MailChimp insurance ended and MailChimp employees were placed on the Intuit offered health insurance. Once on the Intuit provided plan coverage was retroactive to the date the MailChimp plan ended. The employees could submit claims to the Intuit plan for reimbursement of medical expenses paid during the gap. The issue is that floating the money during this time could significantly impact the finances of the employee or that the employee may not have the funds to do so at all.
The reason for employer-offered health care plans is they are paid from pre-tax earnings. If the employee paid for it themselves, it would be paid by post-tax earnings, making it much more expensive.
Depends. If your employer doesn't offer health insurance, you can shop for plans on the government health insurance marketplace. These plans can have substantial subsidies.
USA employers started offering health insurance during World War 2 as a means of enticing women to come to work, as there weren’t enough men to fill the positions. And once that trend started, it simply never stopped.
>This would allow me to purchase my own health insurance at rates comparable to what I'm offered at work.
Would it? The employer can still call up an insurer and say "if you can give me a better deal than X, I'll buy insurance for 1,000 people" whereas you have maybe 5 potential customers to bargain with.
There is no “tax break.” It’s unlawful for me not to buy health Insurance for my employees (more than 50) and you aren’t allowed to shop the open market if you work for me. Average cost per employee is $1150 this year (up about 11% over last year). Thanks Obama.
It is not just the tax break that makes it cheaper for corporations to buy insurance. Companies with a lot of employees pay a lot less than individuals because they pool the risk. Back before ACA you used to be able to get in a pool with, for example, other small business owners and pay an amount similar to what companies pay but as an individual. ACA made those plans illegal and insurance that used to cost $500 per month jumped to $1800.
> In the US, your health insurance is tied to your job.
Why on earth is it that it doesn't matter which party gets elected, you can't seem to get universal health care? Pick California for example, it's a rich state with a massive homelessness problem. What do the homeless mostly suffer from? Addiction and mental health.
Living in Europe and not having to worry about any kind of random health issue is great. If you have some problem, you get it seen to as soon as possible and not worry about whatever it may cost. As an employer things are simpler too, and in the long run, likely cheaper.
It just seems incredibly backwards and I'm not sure it really actually serves anybody. If you're big Pharma, you want your patients to live longer, as they'll get older and have more issues that you can sell products for. If they lose their job, that's lost income.
The worse a company treats its employees, the less loyal they will be, and the more likely it is that one of them decides to earn money by abusing their insider access, either out of greed or despair.
The concept that you make (bad bad) companies pay out of their (outrageous) profit is a delusion.
Companies just take part of your salary and with that they pay medical cost.
I actually prefer paying it myself and having this thing called "free market" or competence work for me.
But in places like the US the system is extremely corrupt and designed to make it impossible for the free market to exist. This is inherited by the political system making mandatory for business to handle that instead of individuals.
In other countries you have things like mutuality organizations of people to provide healthcare, much much better and cheaper that what I see in the US.
> […] As I lie unconscious under a bus, I am in no position to shop for the best provider of ambulance services at the most reasonable price. All personal volition is lost. Whatever happens next, it will not be a market transaction.
This happens all the time when people switch insurance or go onto COBRA. You get retroactively covered for some period after your new plan becomes active.
It doesn't end up with people paying tens of thousands out of pocket, people just don't pay the bills that come in during that period, and kick them to insurance later. It sucks but is not really uncommon or possibly even something Intuit has a ton of control over.
Not really surprised. Both Intuit and MailChimp have been carcinogenic to their customers, vendors and employees for ages now. People should strike and/or complain to their local authorities especially when stuff like this is usually put out black and white in their employment contracts. It will be far more effective than just lashing out on Twitter.
Family plan health insurance premiums on open market is $33K/year in New England (US). With group plans that goes down to $28K/year. A full time employee at $15/hr is $30k/year. The US healthcare system is fundamentally broken...
Another vapid Twitter thread making it to the front page by pulling on emotional strings. Personally, I'd like to see some proof of the claim before entertaining it.
I don't know ... this guy seems to have no knowledge of how complicated transferring employee benefits between organizations is. Its not so simple as just hitting a switch. The whole system conspires to fuck over individuals and small companies. Its nearly impossible to smoothly transition benefits during an acquisitions unless you get things exactly right ... or the acquirer is someone like Google that has an endless pool of money and just throws money at the problem to avoid a PR issue.
As for this guy complaining about his acquisition bonus. Why didn't he negotiate for stock when he was hired? I have always negotiated for a lower salary and more stock, as I wish for the lottery ticket and potential upside. If he wanted to trade off cash for stock, he could have done that. And it that was not on offer at Mailchimp then why didn't he go work somewhere else? Seems like they had some inducement, right? Or did he not understand the terms of his employment.
People are so TERRORIZED by the fact that they are only paid the amount they negotiated in their employment contract. YES, capitalism sucks if you just naively enter into employment without understanding what the compensation entails.
What would you like instead? Employment at a Public Sector Unit? I can assure you PSUs suck BAD for engineers. My father and uncles worked at PSUs before immigrating to the US and improving their fortunes 20X to 50X (no exaggeration).
Looks like very old news. Although I would say that mailchimp as a company never looked employee friendly so at least for me it's no surprise. Intuit is definitely not an employee friendly company.
My advice is if you're still working for them find a new job.
I wonder what the state of this situation is now. Have they actually managed to smooth the transition or is it still a bad deal for Mailchimp employees that stayed on post merger?
[+] [-] oofabz|3 years ago|reply
The only reason American employers are in the business of offering health insurance is because they get a federal tax break. This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals. Given this, if my employer stopped offering insurance, they couldn't increase my salary enough for me to purchase the same plan myself. I think this is unfair - I would like to get the same tax break myself, or at least eliminate the tax break altogether so I am on an even playing field with businesses. This would allow me to purchase my own health insurance at rates comparable to what I'm offered at work.
Considering the tax situation, it's curious that Intuit would not choose to take this tax break. It seems like a short term move that allows them to cut costs while exploiting the economic stickiness of employment. This move makes them less competitive for employees in the labor market, but that only affects them in the long term. In the short term, the employees they have will be hesistant and slow to find new jobs.
[+] [-] heavyset_go|3 years ago|reply
Prices, including labor prices, are not determined by costs. There is no indication at all that companies would compensate employees more if they didn't have to pay for their health insurance. What is most likely to happen is that companies will pocket the difference, in the same way they've been pocketing the difference from increased productivity while letting wages become stagnant.
[+] [-] morpheuskafka|3 years ago|reply
Maybe I wasn't searching correctly, but I was recently discussing healthcare and taxes with someone and briefly searched on the Healthcare.gov exchange to look at prices. There were only three PPO plans (where you can freely go to any doctor in network), and all three were HDHPs, all from the same company. There were many HMO plans, some HDHP and others with low deductibles, but often extremely small local networks and limited choice of both PCPs and specialists.
> This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals.
One other thing to note in your analysis is that most large employers are not buying any insurance, but actually self-insuring (funding the claims out of their own pool of money). So the employers are actually acting as insurance companies for their workers, rather than simply buying and reselling commercial insurance.
There would be additional considerations beyond taxes in analyzing whether this type of insurance is more economically optimal, for example, the fact that each company has a distinct risk pool which may not be similar to the general population, depending on the company.
[+] [-] lowercased|3 years ago|reply
The cost of paying me is also tax deductible, so they get a 'tax break' by paying me more money.
> This makes health insurance cheaper to the employer than to individuals.
I don't think that's the root. Large insurance companies seem to want to sell to larger companies - groups of people - vs selling insurance to individuals. Selling to a group is where it seems some price reduction happens. And... by and larger, if you're selling insurance to people who are already healthy enough to be working regularly/fulltime, your costs for insuring that 'pool' will be somewhat cheaper than the costs of insuring any random individual.
> they couldn't increase my salary enough for me to purchase the same plan myself
If the cost of my health insurance was deductible from my individual taxes, then the entire market would be turned upside down. There are certain thresholds that need to be met re MAGI (IIRC) before health insurance insurance premiums are deductible by individuals. I'm "self employed" so the entirety of my premiums are tax deductible, but for the average person working a W2 job someplace that doesn't provide health insurance for them, it's not a deductible expense, which is a total sham.
[+] [-] businesscasual|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drewrbaker|3 years ago|reply
The amount of time we have to spend each year sorting out our healthcare for the entire company is mind blowing. You are totally correct, it becomes a full time job for 3 or 4 weeks for myself and another partner. So much effort and knowledge required for something that isn’t even our core business! And it inevitably causes drama with employees who don’t like some part of the group plans we end up with. Very stressful.
We only offer it as our employees all say that this benefit is really important to them. I didn’t know it was a tax break for us to be honest.
I wish more employees thought like you did. Our average monthly cost per employee is about $500 for a “silver” PPO plan, and about $110 for dental. Average age of our employees is below 30.
I’d gladly pay employees the $610 extra a month just so we don’t have to deal with it and the drama that comes with it. This would actually save us money from the energy wasted dealing with insurance companies. And no one who’s dealt with our insurance plans over the years has had a positive experience. My brother (who worked for my company) cut his chin while out of state. Required 2 stitches, and he just walked to the closest ER to get them. $3500 it ended up costing him, even with our insurance and countless hours fighting the insurance companies too. Didn’t even see a doctor, a nurse did the stitches. It’s a joke.
Other than salaries, health insurance is the largest expense for our business. Think about that at the scale of the entire economy and its mind blowing the wasted energy/effort on this “system”.
I’m originally from Australia. We have “socialized” healthcare there. My brother is back visiting family currently and got an x-ray and ultra sound for $310. The American system is absolutely embarrassing.
[+] [-] Spooky23|3 years ago|reply
They probably agreed to not layoff Mailchimp employees in the sale, so they make them quit. Purging the sick, tbe pregnant, etc from the company is a way to cut costs, and doing so through some elaborate bureaucratic fuckup avoids government intervention.
[+] [-] Supermancho|3 years ago|reply
I've had multiple open heart surgeries. My medical events are relatively rare (every couple years) and I recently went completely septic for 4 days (started to have multiple organ failure ~3 days from no-return) due to a cascade of underlying issues. I know my medical coverage and it's been critical to my survival for my entire life.
I have NEVER used employer health insurance and anyone with major medical conditions would be foolish to depend on employer coverage in most cases. The offered plans are basically a big deductible with some minor coverage for non-catastrophic, no surgical coverage, nothing chronic. More expensive plans cover more dependents. Gee thx. It's all but useless and I have simply declined it everywhere for the last 25 years to keep the ~25$/mo, as I have paid my own (car payment-sized) platinum level health insurance plan everywhere I've gone (and my wife's). The type of company - Finance, Medical, Marketing, Retail, Consulting (ironically the best I've found), doesn't make much of a difference. Every now and then you find some employer that will "cover your healthcare 100%" which is inevitably code for "cover the plans we choose, which aren't different than anyone else".
[+] [-] smsm42|3 years ago|reply
2. US healthcare system is incredibly hostile to people trying to pay their own costs and designed to be maximally obscure and confusing. Imagine buying a car where your car dealer, tire manufacturer, window glass manufacturer and upholstery supplier bill you separately. Now imagine when you come to the dealer and ask how much the car would cost, they shrug and tell you you'd know when the bills come, just relax and sign on the dotted line. If you really insist, they could give you an estimate - something between 1K and 100K dollars - but they don't guarantee anything, it's just an estimate. And no, you can't choose the suppliers upfront or know which ones they'd use - this you'd also know only when the bills come. And no, there's no way to know when or how it happens - they bills would just show up one day as a surprise. Sounds like a nice experience? That's how the healthcare system works, day to day.
3. The frustrating part is that most of the people think it's the only way to manage it, and those that don't think that the only way to fix it is to nationalize the whole thing. I mean we can create insanely complex supply chains (think how many people cooperated on making a car? And you still can come to a single place and pay for it with a simple transaction at cost known in advance - magic!) - but somehow healthcare is where it all disappears and figuring out the separation of labor thing becomes the problem of the end user.
[+] [-] jackconsidine|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gamblor956|3 years ago|reply
This is wrong on so many levels.
First, employers get a tax break because compensation expenses are generally deductible as "ordinary and necessary business expenses" required for the employer to be competitive in the labor market.
Second, employer policies are cheaper because the risk pool is cheaper to insure than the individual pool, so the insurers can make the same or more profits despite charging lower premiums.
The combined effect is to make employer-based health insurer significantly cheaper on both a pre-tax and post-tax basis than individual plans. But even without the tax benefit employers would still be incentivized to provide health benefits in a labor-competitive market. For example, many still provide free meals and parties to employees, even though meals are only partially deductible and parties are not deductible at all.
[+] [-] forty|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] capdeck|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inportb|3 years ago|reply
Maybe not. Businesses have more negotiating power because they're bigger buyers, so they would still have access to more competitive rates. Unless you got together with a lot of people to negotiate together (and this might be a startup opportunity).
[+] [-] majormajor|3 years ago|reply
On the flip side, the cost my employer pays for my plan is far lower than they would bill me for it on the open market. Last time I looked at the individual market it was amazing how bad even plans for $500-1000 were! They could give me a raise exactly matching what they'd stop paying and I'd still lose out.
Edit to clarify: That's not a "this is cheaper to us after we account for the tax break." That's a "this is the rate it costs us" vs "this is the rate it would cost you" difference.
The negotiation power difference is real. Private market health insurance would need to be well-regulated or we'll all just get screwed even more.
Employers like this because it gives them power over employees and makes it more attractive than being an entrepreneur not just to save money on taxes.
[+] [-] efficax|3 years ago|reply
But I agree, healthcare should be provided by the federal govt like in every other advanced nation
[+] [-] benatkin|3 years ago|reply
In South Korea the healthcare premiums are split between employees and the employers: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_South_Korea They don't have to negotiate group plans and maintaining coverage when switching jobs is pretty seamless.
There has to be a plan if employers stop providing insurance en masse, and I'm not sure it's a good idea to stop getting premiums from the source of personal income entirely. That seems to be a convenient place to get the kind of money that healthcare demands.
[+] [-] bushbaba|3 years ago|reply
Make this similar to gym membership. Let each person decide where to go based on cost and needs. With insurance remaining their for catastrophic events only.
[+] [-] tssva|3 years ago|reply
Intuit did provide health insurance to these employees and take the tax break. There was a small gap between when the previous MailChimp insurance ended and MailChimp employees were placed on the Intuit offered health insurance. Once on the Intuit provided plan coverage was retroactive to the date the MailChimp plan ended. The employees could submit claims to the Intuit plan for reimbursement of medical expenses paid during the gap. The issue is that floating the money during this time could significantly impact the finances of the employee or that the employee may not have the funds to do so at all.
[+] [-] WalterBright|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chromaton|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devoutsalsa|3 years ago|reply
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114045...
[+] [-] thfuran|3 years ago|reply
Would it? The employer can still call up an insurer and say "if you can give me a better deal than X, I'll buy insurance for 1,000 people" whereas you have maybe 5 potential customers to bargain with.
[+] [-] philwelch|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoblePublius|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheRealNGenius|3 years ago|reply
https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalHumor/comments/u15pwv/univ...
[+] [-] troupe|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0xbadcafebee|3 years ago|reply
https://slashdot.org/story/21/11/11/1634237/intuit-slashes-p...
https://www.businessinsider.com/mailchimp-employees-shocked-...
[+] [-] bArray|3 years ago|reply
> In the US, your health insurance is tied to your job.
Why on earth is it that it doesn't matter which party gets elected, you can't seem to get universal health care? Pick California for example, it's a rich state with a massive homelessness problem. What do the homeless mostly suffer from? Addiction and mental health.
Living in Europe and not having to worry about any kind of random health issue is great. If you have some problem, you get it seen to as soon as possible and not worry about whatever it may cost. As an employer things are simpler too, and in the long run, likely cheaper.
It just seems incredibly backwards and I'm not sure it really actually serves anybody. If you're big Pharma, you want your patients to live longer, as they'll get older and have more issues that you can sell products for. If they lose their job, that's lost income.
[+] [-] imglorp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obi1kenobi|3 years ago|reply
It was published on Nov 11, 2021 so perhaps consider a (2021) tag in the submission title?
[+] [-] duxup|3 years ago|reply
I feel like the title is missing that bit.
Doesn’t make it ok, but the situation is dramatically different with even the limitations of a single tweet compared to the title.
[+] [-] ericbarrett|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tgsovlerkhgsel|3 years ago|reply
Like when someone at Mailchimp sold out the users of various Mailchimp customers to criminals (https://twitter.com/Trezor/status/1510558771944333312).
[+] [-] cracrecry|3 years ago|reply
The concept that you make (bad bad) companies pay out of their (outrageous) profit is a delusion.
Companies just take part of your salary and with that they pay medical cost.
I actually prefer paying it myself and having this thing called "free market" or competence work for me.
But in places like the US the system is extremely corrupt and designed to make it impossible for the free market to exist. This is inherited by the political system making mandatory for business to handle that instead of individuals.
In other countries you have things like mutuality organizations of people to provide healthcare, much much better and cheaper that what I see in the US.
[+] [-] endymi0n|3 years ago|reply
> […] As I lie unconscious under a bus, I am in no position to shop for the best provider of ambulance services at the most reasonable price. All personal volition is lost. Whatever happens next, it will not be a market transaction.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisladd/2017/03/07/there-is-n...
[+] [-] cwkoss|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inopinatus|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpodgursky|3 years ago|reply
It doesn't end up with people paying tens of thousands out of pocket, people just don't pay the bills that come in during that period, and kick them to insurance later. It sucks but is not really uncommon or possibly even something Intuit has a ton of control over.
[+] [-] neya|3 years ago|reply
Not really surprised. Both Intuit and MailChimp have been carcinogenic to their customers, vendors and employees for ages now. People should strike and/or complain to their local authorities especially when stuff like this is usually put out black and white in their employment contracts. It will be far more effective than just lashing out on Twitter.
[+] [-] adapteva|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrew_|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oneepic|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheCoelacanth|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheMagicHorsey|3 years ago|reply
As for this guy complaining about his acquisition bonus. Why didn't he negotiate for stock when he was hired? I have always negotiated for a lower salary and more stock, as I wish for the lottery ticket and potential upside. If he wanted to trade off cash for stock, he could have done that. And it that was not on offer at Mailchimp then why didn't he go work somewhere else? Seems like they had some inducement, right? Or did he not understand the terms of his employment.
People are so TERRORIZED by the fact that they are only paid the amount they negotiated in their employment contract. YES, capitalism sucks if you just naively enter into employment without understanding what the compensation entails.
What would you like instead? Employment at a Public Sector Unit? I can assure you PSUs suck BAD for engineers. My father and uncles worked at PSUs before immigrating to the US and improving their fortunes 20X to 50X (no exaggeration).
[+] [-] Dave3of5|3 years ago|reply
My advice is if you're still working for them find a new job.
[+] [-] pyuser583|3 years ago|reply
It sucks. But it’s far from the worst pitfall of our system.
[+] [-] no_wizard|3 years ago|reply
I wonder what the state of this situation is now. Have they actually managed to smooth the transition or is it still a bad deal for Mailchimp employees that stayed on post merger?
[+] [-] Animats|3 years ago|reply