I am not overly inclined most times to explain details I feel might be better left unsaid. I consider it an understandable sentiment given the public nature of the Internet.
Then why bring them up at all?
You've gotten a simple answer to your question from me, and a more complex but still very succinct answer from RG. You should understand it now, but i won't be surprised if you continue to want to argue.
Robert Gentel wrote:Chumly wrote:Why should my employer force me to buy something with what is essentially my own money, and of which I can do without or buy as and if I want?
Because they want insurance on something they consider valuable, their employees, and are often very willing to pay for it to help ensure it happens.
They are not, however, willing to pay extra for Chumly to spend on beer, toys etc.
They aren't "forcing" you to do anything. They are willing to pay for something they consider to be good for them. It's not unlike how scholarships don't give you the cash to use on whatever you want and they aren't "forcing" people to go to college either.
A form of self-serving altruism / enlightened self-interest? What if I tell them my mental heath is jeopardized by a lack of beer and toys
I have found my motorcycles give me a sense of peace far in excess to any marriage counselor's efforts.
In all fairness, your post has a good logic to it and I thank you! Now I truly better get the hell out here and see that damn doctor.
Chumly wrote:A form of self-serving altruism / enlightened self-interest? What if I tell them my mental heath is jeopardized by a lack of beer and toys
Some companies would provide it. The last company I worked for (and likely the last I will work for) provided alcohol every Friday mid-afternoon and nerf toys were placed throughout the office for us to throw at each other (sales people would peg each other while on the phones!). The weekly poker night was almost required attendance as well (C.E.O. used to call other managers in "to talk" if we were short players) and this was a very "work hard, play hard" environment.
I used to golf around the office with a bean bag, rubber balls and a couple of times a real golf ball. I chipped a real ball into one of a manager's office from across the building (about 80 yards) and once managed a real good shot into a cube with a rubber ball.
I did a cannon-ball into a big box full of Styrofoam that left little pieces stuck to the ceiling for months (and hurt the hell out of my back in the process).
We had ping pong tables, foosball tables, and whenever I felt like it I my department would just leave for the beach or to play frisbee outside.
All of this was a calculated corporate culture aimed at keeping people like me happy (I can't deal with routine and will work harder if you give me freedom), and when they changed it they lost folks like me and had to go more "corporate" all around.
It might help if you understand, as well, how the economy of scale works with benefits insurance. Medical costs in the last 40 years have risen out of all proportion to the true cost of providing the services. People who privately purchase health insurance, or who simply pay their own bills get skinned like nobody's business. The greatest bulwark against price gouging in the medical industry is the existence of thousands of insurance groups. Insurance groups negotiate rate schedules in each area in which they operate, which is why, in the United States at least, beneficiaries are provided a booklet listing approved physicians, practitioners, clinics and hospitals. The benefits schedule alters drastically if you go outside the approved list, and with good reason. Here's a specific example.
Late in 1998, i slipped on the ice and badly injured my knee. With regard to my insurance coverage, i was lucky, though. I had already paid my deductible for 1998, and even though most of the treatment i was to receive was in 1999, the case opened in 1998, so the insurance carrier was paying the full cost of outpatient care. In the summer of 1999, i received a bill from the physical therapy unit of the hospital whose outpatient clinic had treated me, demanding that i pay $90/hour for the physical therapy sessions. When i called for an explanation, i was told by the snotty and ill-tempered bookkeeper that my insurance company hadn't paid the full rate--to which i replied: "So what?" Since i handled the benefits package, i knew the people at the insurance carrier, and got prompt service. The carrier had a negotiated rate schedule, under the terms of which they paid $85/hour for the therapy sessions, and the practitioner facility agreed to accept that payment. They were trying to shake me down for the difference between the $175/hour they normally charged, and the $85/hour they had agreed to accept from the carrier. Additionally, there was a bill for $300 for a treatment review by the senior physical therapist at the facility. I had not requested this, and the orthopedic surgeon who was treating me had not either, and he was reviewing my treatment record, and billing the insurance carrier.
Basically, the insurance carrier politely told the treatment facility to go piss up a rope. What is sad is that many people may well have simply paid the bill, worried about their credit rating, and never aware that they were being bilked.
Therefore, for the annual cost of my insurance premiums (about $1800), my insurance carrier had provided all of my outpatient medical care in 1998, after i had paid my $500 deductible. That included my treatment in 1999, because the case had been opened in 1998. With 15 sessions of physical therapy at $85 a wack, the insurance carrier was paying $1275. My employer was paying the $1800/year premium, whether i needed or received the treatment or not. Had i been obliged to pay the physical therapy unit (never mind the physician and the outpatient clinic), it would have cost me $2625.
That is why it is cheaper for employers to provide group insurance coverage than it is to just pay you an amount sufficient to cover your costs.
