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Comment by krschultz | Hacker News Reader

So if we divorced healthcare insurance and employment, how do we garentee that Sally gets the $12,000 the business is currently paying as an increse in her salary?

What stops a business from giving her 75% of the $12,000 they currently spend on her benefits, pocketing the difference as increased profit, and leaving Sally to make up the difference with her dwindling discretionary income (despite a pay raise). I'm not sure how this help Sally.

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Presumably the exact same thing that stops businesses from just paying everyone minimum wage and only ever hiring people part-time to get out of paying benefits.

I.e., Sally will go work somewhere else, or will unionize and kick their ass (ideally only in the figurative sense).

Her discretionary income, despite the pay raise, will only dwindle if her health care costs remain fixed. But the whole point of moving to a single-payer system (or at least more government-provided coverage) is that those costs go down. If they go down by more than the 25% (or whatever) that Sally is losing, everybody wins: she makes more take-home pay, her company makes more profit, and health care costs less for everyone.

There's a lot of assumptions built into that outcome, but I take it that's the idea, if the numbers work out.

Also, Sally's leverage for price negotiation with the insurer is much smaller compared to a sizable business. Meaning her bills will increase as well.

Sally will have a job...the article essentially provides that because of health care and other burdens, Sally will not have a job.

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