Only a small percentage of jobs are actually remote-capable, but most people would be just fine with 1099 work. Most benefits are unused and people prefer cash that they can spend on their own needs instead. Taxes might be harder to save for upfront but not a big deal.
The biggest challenge is how healthcare benefits are tied to employment. It's something that made sense when it started but is now obsolete and seriously detrimental to the modern workforce. Many people either suffer from lack of insurance or are held captive in a job from fear of losing necessary coverage.
Fix that and we would see a lot more positive developments for workers.
> Most benefits are unused and people prefer cash that they can spend on their own needs instead
How did you come to this conclusion, and what do you mean by ‘unused’?
I‘m guessing you mean that a majority of people receiving health care benefits are healthy and thus don’t ‘use’ them enough that the amount of money spent on their health plans is larger than the amount they would spend out of pocket?
Even if that is true, that’s not really the point of insurance. Insurance exists to protect you against an eventuality that you don’t necessarily expect to occur, but would be catastrophic if it did. People don’t buy liability car insurance because they expect to cause a terrible accident and want to come out ahead financially. There is a value to being insured whether or not you have to actively take advantage of the plan.
Jobs offer many benefits, of which healthcare is only one. Healthcare being used doesn't mean everything else is.
Things like food, equipment, travel perks, gym memberships, etc. could instead be spent on bigger paychecks, especially if you're already moving towards remote work.
Outside of the SV bubble or Fortune 500 HQ offices, these perks are basically non-existent. I don't know anyone who's employer pays for food beyond a pot of cheap coffee. We have a couple of local gyms that offer discounts to employees of certain companies but that's like $10/mo on an already overpriced gym.
That's great then, there's nothing to worry about. My issue is when benefits are offered and unused, because it's a cost that the company could otherwise put towards paychecks.
What food or equipment benefits exist for the average american remote worker? How much do you think is spent on the average worker’s ‘travel perks’ and gym memberships?
The sum of the money spent on all non-healthcare benefits (aside from maybe 401k matching) is a drop in the bucket compared to healthcare premiums. I don’t think its unfair to assume that the only real benefit the average full time worker receives is their employers contribution to their health coverage.
I don’t have any data to back this up, but I’m guessing the amount of people who even receive these extra benefits in the first place are a tiny minority of relatively highly paid workers.
>It's something that made sense when it started but is now obsolete and seriously detrimental to the modern workforce.
It didn't even make sense when it started. In the 30s the US government instituted wage controls in a misguided attempt to fight the depression, so because businesses weren't allowed to pay workers more (there was a government-mandated wage ceiling), they started offering health insurance to attract them instead. It's a classic example of the negative second-order effects of economically unsound policy.
I’m fairly ok with arguments for public only health care but that said, why would detaching health insurance from employment require the end of private health insurance completely?
Thats not true for any other of the insurances I have. My car, home, flood, and life insurance all aren’t related to my employer yet still exist.
Essentially pre-existing conditions (including ones the patient knows about but are not on their medical file) are a mess to deal with as they significantly spike expected costs. Healthy people have little reason for good insurance and unhealthy people are desperate for it. Car insurance is similar but that's mitigate by it being mandatory and even then pre-existing conditions (ie: accident rates) can spike insurance a lot.
You can deal with it I believe by making insurance mandatory for everyone, banning all groups plans and preventing pre-existing conditions from being taken into account. Probably need some more restrictions on the fifty other ways of gouging expensive patients by insurance companies. But then you basically have government run health insurance in everything but name.
All of the forms of insurance I mentioned are extremely regulated. All of them have adverse selection effects. All of them have good populations and bad. None of them are associated with employment and you’d think someone was crazy for suggesting they should be.
All the risk pools you want to be in are employer-affiliated right now, but the individual health insurance market would be a lot more reasonable if everyone moved there at the same time.
I don't see why it would. If anything it would create more liquidity since the insured would no longer be grouped by employer but entire regions, states, or even a single massive group for the underwriting insurer.
Why? Private health insurance in the US is largely unaffordable due to regulations. Small businesses, ie consultancies with one practitioner, are prevented from joining together to negotiate health fees. Similar obstacles occur for individuals working 1099. How about removing those regulations first before going with a public option?
The point is that there are laws preventing individuals from forming a group. A group is more than one. The laws disallow the many, which is defined as more than one, to make a group.
Only a small percentage of jobs are actually remote-capable, but most people would be just fine with 1099 work. Most benefits are unused and people prefer cash that they can spend on their own needs instead.
As a COO, I disagree with every one of those statements.
EDIT:
All programming jobs (in my company) are remote capable, and most already are.
95% of my employees use their health benefits.
How’s a starbucks barista gonna work from home? Or a hairdresser? Or literally anyone that isn’t a knowledge worker?
We’re still primarily a service and manufacture economy aren’t we?
Hell even a lot of knowledge work can’t happen from home. I doubt microbiology research can be done from home. At some point you’re gonna need new data and experiments to analyze
Coffee vending machines already exist but aren't able to handle the volume of a busy coffee shop. Also a good barista is able to control quality much more than any super-automatic machine even if it could keep up with production.
The biggest challenge is how healthcare benefits are tied to employment. It's something that made sense when it started but is now obsolete and seriously detrimental to the modern workforce. Many people either suffer from lack of insurance or are held captive in a job from fear of losing necessary coverage.
Fix that and we would see a lot more positive developments for workers.