You can’t choose not to work in the US. You will be without health insurance.
I don’t know of single US company that allows their workers on their board. I’m not against it. I think it’s an awesome idea.
I don’t know of single US company that allows their workers on their board. I’m not against it. I think it’s an awesome idea.
Technically, if a CEO is on the board, then a company’s employee is on the board. Shareholders will probably not vote to put a line level employee on the board, though.
The compliment to "workers aspiring to join the owning class" is that the biggest risk a capitalist faces is the possibility of being thrust back into the working-class, and having to actually work for a living, as opposed to living off of profits derived from the labor of others.
In practice, socialism is a power grab where populist leaders redistribute the ownership classes' assets to themselves.
Wikipedia's treatment is a bit more nuanced. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism
So the conversation becomes, should the government(s) in the US force businesses to place line level employees on the board (if the line level employees want to be on the board), and under what parameters?
In Germany, they do find it economically viable and important for line level employees to have direct representation on the company board. Talking about the CEO or other management classes being on the board is missing the conversation. Suggesting that because US companies don't believe in the economic value is missing the conversation. Suggesting that people are saying that this type of board composition is illegal is also missing the conversation. No one said it's illegal, but it's equally not a legal requirement either like it is in other places.
The conversation is that this composition doesn't exist, by and large, in the US, and people think it should. People seem to believe that it does have value to the business.
So yes, it does seem like you're creating semantic arguments because your points miss the conversation semantically.
On the other hand, we do have higher productivity, but not having codetermination probably isn't the reason for that.
Is this how workers’ councils work in Germany?
You don't really have a choice if nobody where you live will take your insurance...
Some of the low cost companies are essentially scams: most of the "providers" they list on their site will not actually accept the plan; if you do have any medical costs, they will do everything possible to avoid paying even when you are clearly covered; you'll wait for hours on hold to talk to support, then they will be rude and unhelpful; etc. etc.
It's well worth paying an extra hundred or so per month for a reputable provider so that you at least have actual functional health insurance.
There might be some states where the marketplace has nothing good in it, often because that state's governor was so ideologically driven they refused free money from the feds to expand medicare style systems. American health care is HUGELY state to state, largely depending on how willing a governor is to actually help their constituents instead of virtue signalling.
Both would only cover one of the four nearest major hospitals to me (though they did differ in which one it was) and only one of the two covered the huge local children's hospital that's also bought up nearly all the independent pediatrician's offices and pediatric urgent cares in the entire city, so if you have kids you actually only have one "option".
So much for the bounty of choice we preserved by not just going single-payer.
Health insurance is the "golden handcuffs" for most people staying in a job.
Regardless, there's subsidies if you don't have income, and it's just based on income; there's no requirement to seek income.
I'm near seattle, and my marketplace place for 2 adults around 40 and 1 child was around $1,200; unsubsidized.
Class struggle happens everywhere and workers can win anywhere, even the US.
Neither Medicaid nor Obamacare require you to work. My father in law did this in Oregon. “Retired” years before being eligible for Medicare, and is covered by the Oregon Health Plan. In Oregon you don’t even have to be legally in the country to qualify for fill OHP benefits.