>I understand this is what you heard, not the position you hold. But I
>thought there was consensus among economists both left and right
>(including Marxist) that employer paid health insurance is simply
>another form of wage. (Workers are better off with it than individual
>insurance, because employers can negotiate group rates, and
>additionally insurers are subject to some regulations in employer paid
>plans that individual plans are not subject to.)
Doesn't sound very Marxist, thought I'm no expert. The last bit sounds illigical, if employers can negotiate better rates than individual workers, then a Marxist would surely expect any savings to be reaped by the employer. (In the sense that the employer would otherwise have to pay higher nominal wages to allow employees to buy their own health insurance.)
> So single payer
>health would be better for workers even if financed 100% via
>regressive taxes , not only collectively but individually in the
>majority of cases.
I can't see how this is logical either. Taxes are of course paid by the employing class, either directly or indirectly by having to pay higher nominal wages to compensate for higher taxes that workers might nominally pay. (So who pays taxes is really a dispute between different sections of the employing class, one the working class need not takes sides in. So long as someone pays them.)
> That is most currently insured USAians would be
>better off under a regressively financed single payer plan than under
>the current system. True?
In the sense that health care and related services would be more equitably distributed and more conveniently accessed. But in the sense that health care is a socially necessary part of the cost of living, it is an unavoidable part of the cost of labour so the employing class has to pay for it one way or the other. If they want to pay the inefficient way, it will obviously cost them more, but the inefficiencies will be at the expense of profits on balance.
That, as I understand it, is the marxist position anyhow, which seems to make sense.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas