Tying health insurance (via tax benefits) to employment was a explicit decision by the US government to make people work, but it also makes people stay in worse jobs longer out of fear.
80 years ago, in the context of the war economy of WW2
How is that relevant? Democrats have been pushing for Medicare for all or some other fully socialized system since the Kennedys, while republicans have shown zero ability to do anything but ban you from buying cheaper drugs
Pretending this is "gubermint bad" is just ignorant. It also just, wasn't the government's explicit doing. The government froze wages during a literally existential war. Look at Russia right now for why that's generally a good idea. Companies responded by offering non-wage payments of various sorts.
The US built a significant fraction of ALL war material for the allies in WW2. They did this through significant amounts of command economy. Building a Liberty transport ship every other day was done by centralized planning, NOT the free market. See the US's current difficulties buying 155mm howitzer rounds for examples of how the "free market" is worthless at dealing with real wartime production concerns. We didn't build 50k tanks by waiting for the free market to collect a payday. We didn't build more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined by relying on the free market.
So why haven't republicans fixed this in the near 70 years of political dominance they've had in the US? Democrats have consistently pushed for solving this shitty situation for decades, but have never gotten the votes needed to even get into government.
Don't pretend what the US does amounts to genuine care.
The philosophy behind a business caring for employees and implementations of slavery are two fundamentally different topics, only confused when buying into US propaganda.
jerlam|5 months ago
mrguyorama|5 months ago
80 years ago, in the context of the war economy of WW2
How is that relevant? Democrats have been pushing for Medicare for all or some other fully socialized system since the Kennedys, while republicans have shown zero ability to do anything but ban you from buying cheaper drugs
Pretending this is "gubermint bad" is just ignorant. It also just, wasn't the government's explicit doing. The government froze wages during a literally existential war. Look at Russia right now for why that's generally a good idea. Companies responded by offering non-wage payments of various sorts.
The US built a significant fraction of ALL war material for the allies in WW2. They did this through significant amounts of command economy. Building a Liberty transport ship every other day was done by centralized planning, NOT the free market. See the US's current difficulties buying 155mm howitzer rounds for examples of how the "free market" is worthless at dealing with real wartime production concerns. We didn't build 50k tanks by waiting for the free market to collect a payday. We didn't build more aircraft carriers than the rest of the world combined by relying on the free market.
So why haven't republicans fixed this in the near 70 years of political dominance they've had in the US? Democrats have consistently pushed for solving this shitty situation for decades, but have never gotten the votes needed to even get into government.
crawfordcomeaux|5 months ago
The philosophy behind a business caring for employees and implementations of slavery are two fundamentally different topics, only confused when buying into US propaganda.