Health Care Workers Pay The Bills

Health Care One of the major issues separating Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democratic leaders on health care reform is how much employers should have to pay to the state if they don’t provide insurance for their workers Health Care. This debate among politicians ignores a point upon which almost all economists agree Health Care: employers don’t really pay for health care now. We workers pay for our own health care.

Consider a company that provides no insurance now and pays its employees $10 an hour Health Care. Suppose the state tells that company it must spend 75 cents an hour (7.5 percent of payroll) on health care for that worker Health Care. The worker’s labor is still worth $10 an hour to that firm, just as it was before the state passed its law Health Care.

The amount it costs to employ one more worker has almost doubled from the employers’ perspective. But the workers have seen only about one-fifth of that amount in their paychecks Health Care. They are paying the rest for their health care, whether they realize it or not Health Care.