Should employers be forced to carry health insurance?

QUESTION:
With the cost of health care,
DO YOU THINK EMPLOYEES SHOULD PROVIDE provide group health insurance for employees to buy? No matter how small the group?

(i.e., individual insurance, in one way or another, is costly to those with pre-existing conditions)
Additional Details
interesting, Gem!

Absolutely not. It's time the government stopped mandating things for private industry. Let's consider HOW health insurance got linked with employment to start with--government meddling:

Economist Thomas Sowell explains:
"When and why did health insurance, paid by third parties, become widespread in the American economy? Like so many things that the government does, third-party health insurance grew out of problems created by previous government policies.

During World War II, the government imposed wage and price controls. This meant that employers who wanted to hire more workers were forbidden to offer higher wages to attract them. So employers started offering various benefits instead. One of these benefits was employer-paid health insurance.

Since these benefits were not taxed as income, and could be treated as a business expense by the employer, everybody seemed to be better off. But, long after the war was over and wage and price controls were gone, the idea that third parties ought to pay for health insurance continued on. Eventually the government itself got into the business of providing health insurance and now some politicians depict it as a scandal that not everyone has health insurance paid for by third-parties.

This might make some sense if third-party insurance was cheaper or better than insurance that each individual pays for directly. All the evidence is that it is just the opposite. When third parties pay, use of the insurance -- and of the medical resources that it pays for -- has skyrocketed beyond anything contemplated at the outset."
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell050803.asp

Then there is the tremendous downside of the ERISA shield which Jamie Court discusses in Making A Killing at
http://www.makingakilling.org/contents.html
This basically makes them impervious to lawsuits for NOT providing proper coverage under the policies they sell.
"because of how the law regards insurers who provide insurance via a patientâ€™s employer, managed health care providers canâ€™t be held legally liable for poor decisions they makeâ€”even ones that directly contradict the patientâ€™s doctorâ€™s professional opinion. The reason is that the courts were convinced that the managed care company is not acting so much as an insurer but rather as â€œan administrator of employee benefits.â€ That made issues with them a federal caseâ€”state court cases will be moved to the federal level at the request of the defendant (insurer). The benefit to them is that if the insurer/HMO loses the claim at that level, all they can be held liable for is the cost of the benefit that was denied. Furthermore, if the patient dies before the ruling is issued, nothing is owed."
Cassandra Nathan's book Save America, Save the World citing the Court book.

So, what's the answer because you risk financial ruin without insurance. (In fact, you risk financial ruin WITH insurance because of their dishonesty. More than half of all bankruptcies are for medical bills and MOST of those folks HAVE insurance).

There IS a sensible plan that does NOT force patients on it with fear of fines; does NOT impose the costs on employers; does NOT raise our taxes; and DOES resolve another abuse of the taxpayer in its funding, provides for preventative care (moral and economical), and would prevent bankruptcies (more than half are caused by medical bills and most of those folks have insurance). Check it out:
http://www.booklocker.com/books/3068.html

Before my employment with family began, hands down, I would have screamed ABSOLUTELY! Now, after experiencing first hand how it is really like working with an entrepreneurial company (and small, initially), I say no way. Why? If my father in law was forced to give us insurance (when he is paying only liability for him and his wife), for only two employees, it would break him, and/or deduct from our raise increases. Small businesses would be affected greatly, possibly seeing a surge of "out of business" signs on doors. Insurance needs to be regulated; if this happened, insurance would be within an affordable range to for small businesses to purchase. Currently, I'm on my husband's, going through the dealership, and they are ridiculous! The company provides almost no assistance. Insurance companies are running this country into a train wreck, because they have the power to do so. Excellent question!

Healthcare costs should be absorbed by the government.

Well, it's going to be costly to the employer! If you have less than 10 people in the group, it's going to be individually rated ANYWAY. So it's not like the group policy is going to be saving any money, it's just you're asking the employer to pay an additional $12,000 per year per employee.

Sounds like a recipe for layoffs, to me.

No, that should not be mandatory, You are putting more of a burden on small businesses when many are already struggling to employ people and make ends meet.

i feel that when a company thats offers healtcare insurance no matter how small the company is there is a lower turnover rate and ppl are likely to stay with the company.

No, because smaller businesses would never be able to afford the cost and would either be forced to pay their employees less or hire less people.

I can not add anything further to what has already been most eloquently stated in the above posts. I agree with them - small businesses just simply cannot afford to pay for employee health insurance and stay in business competitively! CJ

It is not much cheaper for small group policies than for individual policies, so forcing a company to do this wouldn't help much anyway.

What we need to do is force our state legislatures to create the regulation that many small groups or individuals can band together and get cheaper group rates. But, as the insurance lobbies are some of the biggest groups in the country, don't hold your breath waiting for your state to do anything.

Why don't you talk to your co-workers and boss and see if you can make this happen for your company? As a business owner I might be willing to contribute my time (or my HRs time) to look into and regulate this.

But, as I said, keep in mind that many small groups get hosed too. My policy was costing $425 per month per employee (7 on insurance) and over $900 for a family policy. My employees, who are not extremely low paid could never afford to pay themselves, and the company's ability to pay is reduced with every passing year (and price increase) and the loss of sales from foreign "competition".

Good luck.

Go ahead, force them. Then if the company decides to go out of business becuase of the cost of being forced to provide something, then tell me, "what have you gained."

It might kill small businesses. What the US really needs is a national universal health care system similar to that in the UK and the rest of Europe. Lack of health care is actually hurting the US economy and stifling growth. If you want to be an entrepreneur you have to go without adequate health care these days. The US is lagging economically behind other competing economies because of this.

The system we have now is awful, even those with benefits have terrible healthcare and we pay a fortune for bad care. The only people getting rich are the Health insurance providers who take the money and then deny care. The system is broken and needs to be scrapped. The US is going to lose it best workers as they get fed up and leave for countries where staying healthy won't bankrupt you.

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