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Comment by shirtless_coder | Hacker News Reader

No one forced the employees of his company to apply. There should not be restrictions on companies like this. I don't even think there should be a minimum wage. If the employees are walking in the door, and asking for a job, then it's their choice whether to take it or not.

When you raise the minimum wage, or require the employer to provide health insurance, you are closing the door on many potential employees and definitely increasing the unemployment rate.

Employees are paid according to their value. If you are making low wages it's either what you're worth, or because you're too stupid to realize you're being exploited.

I for one think people have a right to be either worthless or stupid, and therefore do not think business should be regulated in such a way.

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He's not talking about unfairness to the employees in this case, but to third parties who are neither the employer nor the employee. If a company doesn't offer health insurance or a salary sufficient to buy private coverage, then what happens when one of their employees gets seriously ill? Generally they will still receive some care (at least in serious enough cases), so someone has to pay for it. It will be either: 1) a different company, indirectly via their health insurance package, which covers the person in question as a spouse or child; or 2) hospitals or the government, if a patient ends up going to the ER and receiving care they can't pay for.

The costs incurred by people not paying for their medical services are relatively small, less than 5% of all health care costs.

A much bigger issue is higher insurance premiums due to unhealthy lifestyles.

Preventable poor health due to obesity, poor nutrition and lack of exercise are a major contributor to health care costs.

That results in higher costs for everybody.

As a healthy, fit, non-smoker and non-drug user, why should I have to pay their costs?

Exactly. Unless you're going to allow people to die in the waiting room at the ER because they don't have insurance, someone is bearing the cost of treating the uninsured. It's either a spouse, the government, or everyone else who has insurance via higher premiums.

Generally, that cost is much higher. US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door, which is ridiculously expensive. Treating people before they need emergency treatment is much cheaper. Or you could be really hard-line, and just let them die if they can't pay for treatment.

Reality, you already have socialised care. It's just really inefficient. And you pay extra for private cover!

US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door

I don't know that to be true, here in Florida we have a lot of immigration, many of them are fleeing worse places and don't have a lot of money and definitely don't have insurance, so they go to the ER like others go to their general practitioner. They do this because hospitals are not allowed to refuse treatment to the uninsured.

US hospitals can only treat uninsured people who are on death's door

If you break your arm or get poked in the eye and don't have insurance, you do not get refused treatment at the ER.

> Employees are paid according to their value. If you are making low wages it's either what you're worth, or because you're too stupid to realize you're being exploited.

Somebody ought to tell that to Goldman Sachs or just about any big american corporation which pays insane amounts to people who have a track record of running businesses into the ground.

Right. The reason that every first world country in the world has minimum wage is because they want to hurt business as much as possible.

>No one forced the employees of his company to apply.

Companies have been proven to be conspiring to keep wages down just recently. An employee is forced to work somewhere.

But I bet you think the insane amount of money CEOs get is their "market rate" too.

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