Gatordoc50
Full time employment: Posting here.
ziggy29 said:In theory, this is fine if (a) the employer passed on all the saved health care costs to the employee to buy their own insurance, and (b) if the inequity in tax treatment between employer-provided insurance benefits and cash payments used to buy your own policy were eliminated.
If someone's coverage costs the employer $10,000 a year, I don't trust employers to give employees $10,000 a year to buy their own policy, or less than that net of the subsidy so it's a wash for the employee. Then again, that subsidy is another wrinkle. Do you give the same $10,000 (or whatever) to someone with $100K in household income as someone earning $40K in household income, knowing that the latter would also get a pretty hefty subsidy and would pay a lot less than $10K per year out of pocket for health insurance?
I don't believe that the money could be dispersed to the employees for them to buy insurance. Some may take the money and pay the penalty which doesn't help the overall picture. As far as the tax inequity, that is another problem. If you tax employer benefits then you are characterizing the benefit as income. The employer can not then withhold your income to buy insurance. That would be unconstitutional.. Or at least would be challenged. I believe that battle has been saved for a future day.