Please more details.

I simply used "our current healthcare system" for expediency of my argument. Of course I prefer that to mean private health insurance, even employer provided.

My point was that Comp insurance is really anything but. My rep told me yesterday that I will be on the hook for roughly 75% of the $40k (would be a higher percentage but I get credits for small size and good record) which I will start paying next year and pay off in three. That's not insurance, that's a loan.

I don't mean by force; the corporation is a government created entity and reaction to that spawned labor unions.

Trade unions are another animal, in essense a corporation of skilled tradesment in order to keep prices high. While I wouldn't block those by government either, I'd not allow government protection of their group.

The same goes for MD's, RN's, and the other so-called skilled professionals that use government to restrict access.

I was accurate, but you are partially right, I stopped a bit short of your full position. Here it is in summary:

1. If employer and employee agree via an impartial arbitrator on whether there was "negligence," then there is no need for a case. Non negligent employers are off the hook, negligent employers pay, assuming the parties agree.

2. If they can't agree whether the employer was "negligent"(probably 99% of the time), the case gets dumped into the traditional fault-based liability system that you love so much (no word on what happens if its a fellow employee that is negligent, but what's a few details between friends?)

3. If the employer is found "not negligent" the taxpayers pay for the cost of care and lost wages for the injured employee and his family (with no increase in taxes, I'm sure, what's a few trillion additional deficit between friends?)

4. The cost of all of this is borne by "ABD"**


How's I do?



**Anybody but daddy

Don't encourage him, gaijindabe.

FastPat pasted an article about a private insurance company raking in dough and using questionable accounting. Yawn.

My state has effectively resisted "three way" bills that are dropped each year. The private insurance industry would LOVE to come in and skim the worker comp insurance market. Write policies in industries that don't make claims. Leave the taxpayer to underwrite the expensive industries. Yeah, baby.

Also in Washington State, workers cannot sue employers for workplace injuries. Employers have two options. They can self-insure, or they can pay into the state plan. Either way, they cannot be sued. Premiums area based on the industry, and the employer's actual experience rating (claims history).

Darned liberals.

Just to be clear, the guy that slips and falls off a Wal Mart ladder and breaks his neck while working for $6.50 and hour with no health insurance, he and his family are the state's problem, not Wal Mart's problem, or Wal Mart's insurer's problem?

If he racks up $1MM in medical care, the state pays. If he has 4 kids under age 10 but can't work for the rest of his life, the family goes on welfare.

That's your system?

If WalMart is not at fault then:

Whatever would have resulted from the same scerio excepting that he slipped and fell off a ladder at home.

What happens if he does this while at home with no insurance and/or no job? You are simply looking for someone besides the mobility impaired person to blame. It could not be his own fault, never.....

You just shifted trillions of dollars of cost from private industry to the government. I hope you are prepared to pay for it.

Oh right. You support Bush. We'll just borrow the money.

So you don't care about right and wrong, you just don't want to pay your share.

Keep in mind that money saved in private industry is money reinvested in the economy, your scenario is quite pessimistic

Nothing to do with it, buddy. If someone gets hurt making money for you, you pay for it via workers comp insurance. The responsibility is on the employer, and the taxpayers are not burdened with the cost of their production process.

Why do "conservatives" see "responsibility" only in one direction?

If I run a plant where every year, unavoidably 500 people are injured because of the dangerousness of the process, why am I not responsible for the predictable outcome of my economic activity? Why are the taxpayers asked to shoulder that burden? Where's my responsibility?

Quite the opposite. I care deeply. And it's "right" to take care of people who are injured while working for your economic enterprise.

Tripping over a ladder or falling into a machine does not make someone "wrong." It means they got hurt making money for you, and the "right" thing to do is to take responsibility for the consequences of your economic activity, not pass it along to the population as a whole.

No, they got hurt making money for themselves, they are not my slaves. And tthe employee is not being punished, no one said they did anything wrong. All that's nbeing said is that the employer certainly did nothing wrong.
If your secretary bumps her head on the underside of your desk causing her an anurism and lifelong disability, will you take care of her and her family for the rest of their lives?

BTW, giving/providing someone with a job is a good and honorable thing. It is not something you should feel guilty about.

You bet I will, through my insurance carrier. It's a cost of doing business.

And here's the good news. Because I accept inevitable injuries as a cost of doing business, and insure against it, you will never have to pay for my secretary's medical care.

How will your insurance carrier provide for her family? Me thinks you'll need to pick that tab up yourself. Her husband thanks you BTW:D

You've resorted to your trademark wisecracking. This is an important discussion.

You think the inevitable cost of some guy falling into a dangerous machine should be "hidden" in the tax base, to be borne by all. I think if I make my living hiring people to do dangerous work, where unavoidably a percentage of them will get hurt, that is a cost of business and MY responsibility, not yours.

It is about responsibility, but the kind Repubs don't like to talk about.

Just an observation:

Giving or providing a job IS an noble thing, but it is not done for altruistic reasons. It helps the bottom line.

Protection should be available for truly accidental/job related disabilities. The problem is separating the wheat from the chaff.

I would no more ask the public to pay for my broken employees than I would my broken machinery, or my broken windows. Its not MY FAULT the machine broke, why should I pay for it? Let's let daddy and the rest of the pubic pay. I did "nothing wrong," the machine just broke.

Bull. I'm responsible for my costs of production, not the taxpayers. And that inculdes things that go wrong, whether mechanical or human.