Contraception Debate Misses a Basic Question

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Contraception Debate Misses a Basic Question

There’s been plenty of argument over proposed federal regulations requiring employers to offer health plans covering contraception for women. But few people bring up the basic question: Why is it considered normal for your boss to determine your healthcare options in the first place?

Relying on employers for healthcare means the company has more leverage over the worker. If you’re out of work then you might be out of luck when it comes to your health. And if the boss decides what kind of healthcare the employee can get — at issue in the current discussion of religiously-affiliated institutions and contraception — this can mean an extension of the boss’s control outside of work hours.

How did we get to where it’s typical to rely on employers for healthcare?

This.

I posted this earlier this week. I’ve admittedly not looked very hard, but this is the first mentioned I’ve read/heard of this point suing the entire contraception “debate”.

There are just so many reasons that access to health insurance needs to be separated from employment status that it just screams “logical thing to do”.

I do wish the ACA had directly attacked the tax preference shown people who get their insurance through their employer. Heck, most people don’t even realize that government spending via the employer tax benefit by far out spends Medicaid spending. At the same time, the general attitude of employed people that don’t sweat how they get health insurance is to think that those that receive Medicaid dollars are mooches.

Besides the social justice issue, there’s the wet blanket America’s health insurance system puts in entrepreneurship and risk taking in business. The willingness to take risk is typically limited to those that either have few people they are responsible (i.e. they have no kids) or those that are so wealthy that even the worst medical catastrophe won’t bankrupt them (Mitt Romney). The result is less innovation and a slower economic progression than we might otherwise enjoy.

(Source: azspot)