Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

Comment by CWuestefeld | Hacker News Reader

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It appears that others find this more than tenuous:

http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN21171999 1943: The War Labor Board rules that a wage freeze designed to keep inflation in check during World War II does not apply to health insurance benefits, creating an incentive for employers to provide health insurance as a way to build worker loyalty.

http://books.google.com/books?id=UDWZpSUR1aMC&pg=PA100&#... As a result of wage freezes in the World War II period, group health insurance became an important component of collective bargaining...

Also, it's silly to say that only employers can afford health insurance. Obviously the employer considers the total cost of employing you, including salary, healthcare, FISA taxes, etc. If employers stopped providing health insurance, it's likely that wages would increase (approximately) by the cost of that insurance. Then you'd have that money available.

I agree that this is not a tenuous connection, but you failed to mention in your first post that the wage freeze was during the Second World War. Oil was rationed. Factories converted for war production. The entire economy was mobilized behind the war effort. This is most definitely a case of unintended consequences as relating to health care, but your original post implied that the government just willy nilly intervened with health benefits, when the truth is that it was the side effect of mobilizing the economy for national survival.

What you're saying is true, although I'd also throw in that in addition to the war effort, there was also the Depression and inflation driving this bad legislation. One might draw parallels today with the recession and the likelihood of inflation following unprecedented borrowing, but that's neither here nor there.

In any case, I don't see how the specific motivation is relevant. The point is that the government is bad at anticipating the consequences of its actions. The initial motivation isn't what's important -- the end never justifies the means. The point is that pandering and public choice economics will always cause side effects.

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