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Comment by bhupy | Hacker News Reader

The argument against this is that it absolves corporations of the responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living to their employees. The same argument in favor of having a minimum wage instead of a basic income or negative income tax to offset substandard wages: it subsidizes corporations that underpay their employees.

Ditto with socializing healthcare instead of making sure corporations provide it.

It’s not an argument that I agree with at all, to clarify.

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I don't agree that companies should have a responsibility to provide a minimum standard of living. Not because I don't think people should have a minimum standard of living, but because I don't think it makes sense to push that responsibility onto tens of thousands of entities that have different financial situations and structures.

Far better would be for the government to take care of this (via single-payer health insurance, possibly even something like UBI), and tax companies an appropriately higher amount in order to fund it. This would of course require a major overhaul of the tax code in order to eliminate loopholes that allow companies to hide revenue/income and dodge paying their fair share.

Given all the issues around this in the first place, it is clear that expecting companies to provide for their employees isn't working. AB5 is just a band-aid that treats the symptoms and not the cause, and comes with a ton of negative unintended consequences.

As much as I don't like how Uber/Lyft run their businesses (and yet I still use them), they have completely revolutionized (in a good way) how I get around my city. Every driver who I've talked to about AB5 has reacted negatively to it. Either they believe it'll be the end of Uber/Lyft, or they just point out they won't want to drive for them anymore because their flexibility will be destroyed.

But to some extent this was the deal business made with government during the construction of the “military-industrial-complex”: the private sector will employ people at wages and benefits that allow them to be supported during work and retirement in exchange for the govt providing tax breaks/incentives and business/work. Unfortunately the tax breaks and business is still around but industry has slowly wheedled its way out of its social responsibility which you can see in things like contractors everywhere and pushing health and retirement responsibilities back to the govt.

Having employers provide health and retirement instead of just paying higher wages was always one form of scam or another. It started off as a tax dodge (wages were taxed but not benefits), and then it became a way for corporate execs (and governments!) to commit accounting fraud by attracting workers with pensions without actually funding them. We should be rid of them and just have higher wages so people can choose what they want for themselves.

Note trust employer-funded health insurance started not as a tax dodge but as a wage-cap dodge during World War II.

Interesting. I wonder if that's why it was never purged when they did everything else.

There used to be a long list of benefits companies would provide, like company cars, that all went poof right after they started getting counted as taxable income.

>"Interesting. I wonder if that's why it was never purged when they did everything else."

A combination of the endowment effect and inertia/status quo bias. When a Big Medicine lobbyist shows long government wait lines, that can be as effective, and as insidiously misleading, as a picture of immigrants waiting to gain admission to the country.

Corporations shouldn't have the responsibility of providing a minimum standard of living to their employees, they should have the responsibility of paying their employees what their employees agreed to work for.

If their employees have their back against the wall and are literally unable to do anything to change their situation, that is a more general societal problem.

UBI is, in my opinion, a monumentally superior solution than trying to micromanage the nature of contracts that people are capable of negotiating between one another.

This is true in a vaccuum. Unfortunately when you look at the history of the U.S., it's the corporations that have taken the burden of providing for U.S. workers. Other developed nations have their government supporting it's citizens, not corporations.

How is that an argument against replacing these rules with a UBI?

The US spends over 2 trillion a year on social welfare services, and that's just federally.

Corporations have no such obligation. This is an imaginary and destructive construct. Destructive because mandating this, forcing it, does nothing less than destroy jobs and even entire industries. How much more evidence of this do people need before they realize we are destroying ourselves from the inside?

The consequences of the $15 per hour minimum wage will be felt in due time. Anyone running a business in the context of a global economy knows this with absolute certainty.

This isn’t about greed, it’s about a mathematical reality and a destructive positive feedback loop: We keep doing one dumb thing after another to push jobs, businesses and industries towards China. Our consumers lose jobs and income and, as a result, apply downward pricing pressure to the goods and services they consume. Sector by sector, over time, pricing structures become such that it is impossible for these businesses to exist in the US or Europe. The Chinese government knows this, they apply further pricing pressure and very soon they own one sector after another. And so continues our positive feedback loop, deepening economic wounds that assure bad long term outcomes.

I really wish we actually taught kids from K-12 and into university a lot more about business and entrepreneurship. It is truly sad to watch young adults get behind some of the most destructive ideas this nation has had at the table in quite some time.

Simple example: Medicare for All.

Despite what people believe, this is already the largest private property grab by a government in, perhaps, world history. It certainly will be if we end up with Medicare for All.

Why?

Because Medicare is NOT insurance!!! After 55 years if age YOU OWE THE GOVERNMENT FOR EVERY PENNY OF MEDICAL CARE YOU RECEIVE.

Don’t take my word for it, read this and do your own research:

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/how-medicaid-recover...

So, if everyone was on Medicare/Medicaid the government would eventually have liens and the power of asset forfeiture on EVERY ESTATE IN THIS NATION.

Now, stop and think about that for a moment before you support politicians using the general ignorance of facts by the public to generate votes. This is a travesty, and everyone supporting it is a participant in what would be the largest private property grab by a government in history.

Think.

I'm not so sure this accurate or argued in good faith considering the article you linked clearly states.. "Some states are fairly conservative about what they will try to take -- they have the right to recover costs from real estate, personal property, and other assets only if they are included within the deceased person's "probate estate." A probate estate includes only assets that were owned solely by the individual at the time of death, where there is no beneficiary or joint owner designated. Joint accounts, payable on death accounts, and contracts that have designated a beneficiary are not included in the probate estate."

This clearly sets aside assets that are dedicated to a beneficiary or if the assets are jointly owned. I'm not a lawyer, so if someone is please chime in, but this would exclude pretty much anyone has a will or is still married.

I think this not a valid reason to exclude Medicare for all as an alternative to our disjointed and dysfunctional system of medicine. Also what about this precludes us from changing this feature if it was rolled out for everyone?

Check their link again. They're conflating Medicare and Medicaid and clearly did not read their own article. Medicare isn't mentioned a single time in the entire article, not even in passing.

Go research how things work. Clearly --to echo your sentiment-- you do not understand how these programs are interrelated.

-Medicare does not kick in until 65+

-While you are on Medicaid you accumulate debt after age 55

-Medicare has an expenditure limit, after which you are kicked back into Medicaid, which is, effectively, after 55, a debt you have to pay and the State has the ability to place liens on your estate and grab your property for payment. In fact, they are required to do so by law.

As I said in another comment one of my friends is dealing with exactly this scenario right now. In fact, I just spoke to him a few minutes ago and learned his father died this morning.

While he was on both Medicaid and Medicare (due to the aforementioned ping-pong effect) he now owes the government a pile of cash, hundreds of thousands. My friend has power of attorney over the estate and will be traveling back to his home town to sell the assets and pay the government.

Again, like I said in my other comment, I am not saying these things because they occurred to me. This is reality in the US today: The crap they are trying to sell us will, in fact, turn into the largest private property grab by any government in the history of the world.

In my friend's case the Medicare lifetime limit was $120K. His father burned through that very quickly --probably in a single hospital stay. He was then kicked back into Medicaid, where he already owed money (from 55 to 65). All of his care after the $120K Medicare limit then became a debt the government is required, by law, to collect. And they intend to do so. This will cause the sale of his father's estate for payment. He is dealing with this nasty reality right now.

These things are NOT insurance. That's the greatest lie people are being told.

EDIT:

In Q&A form...

How do you get to Medicare?

Through Medicaid.

Is Medicaid insurance?

No.

Is it free?

After 55 years of age you owe the government for your medical care. It's a loan.

Are they required to collect on that debt?

Yes, by law. Some states are a little more lenient, but the law says they have to collect.

How do they collect?

They seize your estate, your assets, they can force a sale of assets, etc.

Are the children affected. In come cases the debt has affected the children (I don't remember details).

Is MediCARE insurance?

No.

Is is free?

No, you paid for it while working.

Does it cover everything?

No, there's a limit based on your contribution. In the case of my friend's father this limit was $120K, which is nothing in terms of US medical care.

For context, he was 95 at the time of death. His $120K of Medicare allowance was burned through three decades ago. He ended-up back in Medicaid very, very quickly decades ago. And the bills are massive.

What happens when you use-up this money?

You are kicked back into Medicaid.

What happens then?

You add to the debt you accumulated between 55 and 65.

Do you still have to pay for it.

Damn right!

How?

See above.

Your link and all the information you're regurgitating from it is talking about Medicaid, not Medicare. Medicare does not have estate recovery, you're spreading misinformation.

You guys really need to do your research and understand how these programs work.

I have a friend who is currently going through the estate recovery process for his dying father. They are —the government— effectively forcing him to sell his childhood home in order to pay for the healthcare he and his late mother received.

This isn’t theoretical, this is very real.

Also note that people are shoved into Medicaid until 65+.

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