fishin wrote:It is (to me) more useful when there are more people posting in the thread.
OK, i'll see what i can do about that.
It is rare indeed that any employer ever pays the entire cost of a benefit. I know benefits plan very well, both because i worked in the administrative side of hospitals after i got out of the Army Medical Corps, and because i have, for more than a decade, been a business manager for small businesses.
An employer whom i know who has a very generous attitude toward employee benefit program, and in addition to being a genuinely generous impulse, it is also a tax advantage. There is the further advantage that because he does not pay the highest prevailing wages in his industry, he still attracts a high quality of employee, because of the benefits program. (And, in all honesty, most people in that industry are hired without reference to any skills they possess at the time they are employed, and even skilled, experienced employees have a hard time getting employed at the highest prevailing wage rates.)
So, for example, he pays 100% of the cost of the health/dental/prescription medicine program. That, however, doesn't mean that he funds 100% of the costs associated with that program. The health plan, like almost all health plans in the United States, was an 80-20 hospitalization plan, with a hefty deductible; and an outpatient plan with a hefty deductible for each person covered in the plan. This type of plan is so common because it provides the most benefit to the employee with several dependents, and employers seek to attract and retain "stable" employees, such as heads of families usually are. For the single employee, the plan is a benefit, but it is unlikely that they will incur more than the deductible amount in medical bills in any given year. It's best part was the dental plan, which was a co-pay plan, which meant that rather than paying a deductible, which probably would have equaled the normal, annual cost of cleaning and x-rays, there was a schedule of payments from which the insurer paid a portion of every bill. The prescription medicine plan was a co-pay plan, as well.
So, the employer is paying 100% of the insurance
premium, not 100% of the cost of health care for the employee and any dependents. This is not to denigrate the generosity of that employer--few employers provide group plans at no premium cost to the employee (many employers deduct the entire premium cost from the employee's wages, and all he or she enjoys is the discount from a group plan). There was also a retirement benefits program, which was voluntary, and into which the employee was able to put as much, or as little, money as he or she pleased. Even if the employee chose not to contribute, they were enrolled, because by the statutory limit date, the employer deposited an amount equal to 2% of the employee's gross pay each year. However, it was a standard before tax contribution plan, which was essentially unsupported by the employer. Certainly he made the 2% contribution each year, which was generous--but which he was not obliged to do. However, all the costs of the program were deducted from each employees account.
There really is no such thing as a free ride in benefits programs--at the least, it is very, very rare. In the mid-1970s, as an employee of state government, i had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield program, which paid 100% of outpatient and emergency care, and had an 80-20 plan with no deductible. That was the most generous health insurance plan i've ever seen. We had no dental coverage, however, and no prescription medicine plan. The glory days of "horn o' plenty" benefits plans such as unions were once, and briefly, able to negotiate are gone, and are unlikely ever to return.
