>>> . . . fewer & fewer employers are
>>> providing . . . health insurance . . . .
>>
>> About 90 percent of all employers with 100 or more
>> employees provide a health insurance plan - so it will
> be a factor for a while.
>
> but what percentage of those health plans is currently
> paid by the employees (as co-payments or the like)? this
> percentage is rising, no?
Granted, there appear to be a differences between, on the one hand, an employee handing over an envelope of cash or writing a check or arranging to charge one's credit card or authorizing a pay-roll deduction or by some other means of exchange by which a health plan covered employee makes a co-payment for a prescription or other medical coverage, and, on the other hand, providing labor respecting which a portion of pay is effected by a reduction in wages in cash or cash equivalent the worker might otherwise receive and the balance forgone to provide the employer the means to obtain group or other health care insurance coverage.
But query to what extent it makes sense (especially in a forum devoted primarily to persons with a direct interest in studying economics) to make the assumptions implied by the questions above?
(There are also psychological and related practical arguments having to do with the management of health care costs and the salutary aim of deterring abuse by having some provision for cash or cash-equivalent worker co-payment under any plan, which I don't here address.)
>>> . . . employer opposition to nationalized health
>>> care because it lowers the cost of job loss and
>>> thus employer control over workers . . .
This might be an interesting claim to pursue, if there were meaningful data to evidence its probable correctness