YOUTHquake
City Council wants to amend the living wage ordinance to include a loophole that will end up exempting the mostly younger workers that clean out trash cans at Summer Fest, but why stop there? How about adding some explicitly discriminatory language to make extra sure that employers of some high school and college students don’t have to pay them as much as other workers? Here’s an amendment to the amendment proposed by Council member Stephen Kunselman (seconded by Sabra Briere):
5) This Chapter shall not be applicable to the establishment and/or continuation of the following if developed specifically for YOUTH, high school and/or college students: (a) A bona fide training program; (b) A NONPROFIT SUMMER PROGRAM; (c) A NONPROFIT YOUTH EMPLOYMENT PROGRAM; (d) A work-study, volunteer/public service, or internship program.
On a voice vote, the Mayor declared the motion carried.
Internships are some of the biggest scams around. In fields like journalism and publishing, they are not only unpaid but often restricted to college students only, effectively closing them to all but students from the most affluent backgrounds. Inside Higher Ed reports on “the internship racket,” concluding that “American colleges do a fairly good job providing access to students of varying economic means; they should stress the superior value of achievements within school, instead of lending respectability and support to an internship racket that reliably, and inaccurately, presents the well-off as more enterprising.” (Here’s a good blog on the topic.) It’s unclear why the Ann Arbor City Council wants to enshrine the low pay of internships in law.
Okay, it’s totally clear.
I think to suggest that journalism internships are a scam is laughable. Like many professions, there’s only so much you can learn in the lecture hall. I would have been lost after J-school had it hot been for a great internship with a daily paper. Likewise, I watched many j-schoolers get the experience they needed through their own internships with papers where I worked during my career. And if “American colleges do a fairly good job providing access to students of varying economic means,” then how exactly do internships benefit only those from the most affluent backgrounds? I’m all for a living wage, but I think Steve Kunselman’s exceptions make sense.
posted by Journo on March 27th, 2008 at 1:46 pmSchools provide need-based financial aid. Internships are unpaid or low-paying with no regard for financial need. I’m sure many of them are great, but, as the blogger I linked to pointed out, this kind of thing used to be considered an entry-level job.
I had a journalism internship at a very prestigious publication. They didn’t restrict it to college students, so I was able to work full-time first and save up for it. It was a good experience, but none of us got any clips out of it, and I still cannot find freelance work.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 27th, 2008 at 1:57 pmYou might consider the notion that you made a poor choice for your internship, then.
posted by Journo on March 27th, 2008 at 2:06 pmSince I was not a college student or grad student, and could not have afforded to have an unpaid job when I was, I didn’t have much of a choice. This was about the only publication I knew of that gave a chance to people who had actually worked for a while (I was about a year out of college.) Maybe I should have known to turn it down and try to find an internship at a less illustrious publication, and I would have got more out of it.
I generally believe that it’s unfair to accuse the media of being out of touch with the economic realities of most Americans, but sometimes it fits.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 27th, 2008 at 2:16 pmAAIO I agree with you that unpaid internships definately favor students that are coming from a secure background. I know when I was in college I worked 40 hour weeks during the summer (and over 30 throughout the school year). The fact that I had to make money to pay for school precluded me from an internship. Of course once I got into a program immediately out of school I learned more of value for my field in the first month than the whole four years at spent at college. I estimate that I ended up several years behind other students that were able to afford to take unpaid internships during college. These students made contacts and had a body of work to show future employers. I think at the end of the day I may have ended up in the same position, but it certainly took longer for me to get there than many of my more affluent peers.
However I question why you are bringing this up now AAIO. You’ve been following this issue for some time. Kunselman added his amendment when council had the first reading of this issue more than a month ago. Did you finally notice this proposed change?
posted by Andy on March 27th, 2008 at 3:35 pmIt’s a cleverly timed move. I haven’t figured out how yet, though.
No, I just happened to be reading another Judy McGovern blog entry on this, and it mentioned Easthope’s amendment. It occurred to me that I didn’t know exactly what Easthope’s amendment was, so I looked at the council agenda from that meeting.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 27th, 2008 at 3:40 pmActually, my impression is that what’s happened with internships is that’s it’s no longer legally safe for companies to have unpaid internships (min wage laws), so what they’ve done instead is not make them paid but rather make interns actually *pay* for the experience. At that point, it’s clearly no longer an employment situation. A quick google turned this up, for example:
http://www.bates.edu/x25901.xml
There’s an unintended consequence of min wage laws — workers actually having to pay to work
posted by mw on March 27th, 2008 at 6:27 pmI’m torn. In college I was not in a position to take an unpaid internship because I needed the money for school, so I didn’t have things that looked that impressive on my resume when I got out.
On the other hand, I used to have college students and high school students approach me to do internships in my lab. They had LITERALLY no useful skills and were definitely a charity case on my part (the time I had to spend teaching them to do things that one of my grad students could have done quickly and well was huge), so paying them on top of giving them all that training was pretty hard to swallow. I finally decided that I just wasn’t going to do summer internships at all because I felt guilty not paying but they were just such a huge time-suck that I’d rather have just paid someone with some skills to do the work.
posted by Anna on March 28th, 2008 at 7:32 amThe amendment exempts the City from paying a living wage to any of the college students whom it hires to work in the various Summer Camp programs. It also exempts the YMCA, churches, University of Michigan, and every other nonprofit in the City.
The bottom line, of course, is that if an employee doesn’t like the wages, s/he can go elsewhere for work. If the Summer Festival Board can’t find anyone to scrape up gum from the sidewalk, or empty the garbage without paying $12 an hour, the Festival will either fold or find the money.
A Living Wage Ordinance is actually quite a daring move in tough economic times. It’s a daring move anytime to dictate to employers what they have to pay to their employees, particularly hourly employees. It can encourage people to move to a city, and discourage employers from opening businesses or encourage them to pay ridiculously low “salaries” to skirt the law. Enforcement is problematic. Finally, most living wage ordinances cover less than 1 percent of the local workforce.
It’s a bit of grandstanding, something the Mayor and Council can be quite good at.
posted by spqr on March 28th, 2008 at 5:42 pmIt’s a daring move anytime to dictate to employers what they have to pay to their employees, particularly hourly employees.
Isn’t that what all minimum wage laws do? I don’t really think of them as particularly daring.
Anyhow, if the Summer Festival should be allowed to take advantage of the free market for cheap labor, then so should every other organization that this law would apply to. Right now, people really want to find a loophole that only exempts young workers.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 29th, 2008 at 12:59 pmto claim that anyone who doesn’t like the wages can simply “go somewhere else” is ricockulous. In this state? In this country? Or do you honestly think all the people without jobs just randomly jump on planes to interview for low-wage jobs ’somewhere else’? The very few people who haven’t taken a pay cut in the past eight years might still be blind enough to say - and believe - that.
But I guess in the end you’re right, poor people *do* have a choice: get screwed over or die.
posted by Man Invents Slavery! on March 29th, 2008 at 1:43 pmFor a good translation of widespread advantage-taking to an ethical situation, see this week’s NYTimes Ethicist column.
Says the Ethicist:
“if a single physician [requires his/her patients to waive their rights to sue], one can walk down the street to another doctor. But if all or nearly all doctors make the same demand, there’s nowhere else to go. A fundamental right is eradicated. Conduct that is merely inconvenient if engaged in by a few people can become intolerable if widely adopted.”
I’d say being paid less than it’s possible to live on is awfully inconvenient, and quickly becoming quite intolerable.
posted by Man Invents Addendum! on March 29th, 2008 at 1:53 pmTo AAIO, Man Invents Slavery!, and all those poor college students faced with the dreadful decision of either living at home while gaining valuable work experience at an unpaid internship or else spending the summer at a poorly-paid job: the world doesn’t owe you economic security. I have as much of a sheltered suburban upbringing as anyone and even I know that. If I learned anything from 5 years of grad school it’s that making a career in a highly specialized and selective profession sometimes requires you to spend many years of poverty acquiring the skills and street-smarts to do well in that profession. Sorry, but life is hard sometimes.
posted by Nick on March 29th, 2008 at 10:17 pm“Street smarts”? What job did you train for — clearly something requiring misinformed metaphors.
posted by Errata on March 30th, 2008 at 11:30 amYeah, thanks for proving my point, and completely missing it, Nick.
posted by Man Invents Own Reality! on March 30th, 2008 at 11:56 amI have
* Gone to grad school, where I have always said that the pay and benefits were extremely fair (better than what GEO was striking for. My posts about grad school have all been about unfair and dishonest argumentation that ignores the research contributions of GSIs — I don’t think I’ve ever taken a position on whether a particular GEO demand was justified.)
* Had an unpaid internship, which I think was semi-reasonable because it did not have a requirement that I be a student at the time, and so I could WORK to save up for it. My experience doesn’t make me think that these internships are particularly valuable, though. At least colleges are subject to a great deal of scrutiny and formal accreditation processes.
I would appreciate it if we could have a discussion about what constitutes fair working conditions without the implication that those on the opposite side of the argument do not believe in the value of hard work or think that they are “owed” something.
posted by ann arbor is overrated on March 30th, 2008 at 12:46 pmInternships are some of the biggest scams around. In fields like journalism and publishing, they are not only unpaid but often restricted to college students only, effectively closing them to all but students from the most affluent backgrounds.
Word! When I was a senior back at EMU some 20- years ago, I was majoring in PR and had an awesome professor, Elly Wright. She taught us practical skills, like how to write a press release (which, later in my first job, two U-M graduates had no clue about, but I digress). She had industry contacts whom she invited to address the class. She even had connections for “elite” internships, like one at Tony Franco. However, not only was the drive to Detroit a bit of a stretch in gas money (even back int he day for a poor college student), it was UNPAID. I was working two jobs to pay for school and STILL had to beg parents for money to survive… there was simply NO WAY I ever could have gotten that experience, though I’m sure it would have set me up for an entirely more lucrative career path.
Thank you. I’ve always needed to rant about this!
posted by Monica on March 30th, 2008 at 7:11 pmIn an unrelated note, Elly opened my eyes to two issues I’d been entirely unaware of: the average difference in men and women’s pay and the discrepancies in pay/benefits for hours worked between tenured and part-time professors. I wonder if she’s still alive? Anyone know?
posted by Monica on March 30th, 2008 at 7:17 pmAnd, finally, Nick, not everyone has the option of living with their parents over the summer. Many of the people I went to school with were, for various reasons, independent adults without financial support from their parents. (I don’t mean this as a value judgment; I mean, literally, their parents could not claim them on their taxes as dependents. Often, if parents can’t or won’t financially contribute to their child’s education, the “child” can get more aid themselves as an adult, though this means getting themselves declared independent.)
posted by Monica on March 30th, 2008 at 7:31 pmAnd finally finally (I swear this is my last post!), moving in with parents for an unpaid summer internship is fine if one only has to pay one’s own rent–no apartment, no rent, no problem with unpaid internship. BUT if one is paying both for one’s own education AND living expenses, as was the case of many of the people with whom I went to school, even if you do live with your parents and are saving rent, you are LOSING all the money you would be earning toward your next semester’s tuition. Even if you work during the school year, you can earn significantly more over four months of full-time employment. Hence the issue.
posted by Monica on March 30th, 2008 at 7:46 pmOK, I lied. That was my penultimate post. (This thread has really hit a nerve with me.) Economics aside, distance is also a factor why living with the parents over the summer is not an option. Many students’ parents don’t live in the same town as the University, or in towns within commuting distance of the internship.
posted by Monica on March 30th, 2008 at 7:55 pmI hire interns in my University of Michigan research lab every summer.
I pay undergraduates $11 to $14 per hour, (depending on class rank), graduate students $17 per hour.
posted by College Professor on March 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pmAAIO wants to talk about fair working conditions without the “the world doesn’t owe you a living, bub,” argument being tossed around. I own a business, and in the 16 years I have owed my company, I have seen my opinions about business and what are “fair” working conditions change drastically. It has shocked me, but it’s a fact. Someone once called my opinions about business my “inner Republican.”
So, from my perspective, fair working conditions are dictated by state and federal laws, first and foremost. I can go above and beyond them (for instance though my company doesn’t have enough employees to require me to offer employees 13 weeks of unpaid leave, I do it. I pay 50 percent of their salaries, and 50 percent of their health insurance premiums.)
Obviously, state and federal employment laws favor employers. States want to encourage business, as does the government. As someone who owns a business, and who shoulders the responsibility, personal and financial, I think laws should make it as easy as possible for me to succeed. If I do, my employees continue earning a salary and having their benefits paid.
I get loads of cover letters from potential employees who want to “learn about publishing” while they work for me. However, I am not in the business of educating people. The letters I keep, and the candidates whom I interview are the ones who tell me what skills and expertise they have to offer as employees.
If an internship helps you learn, and you want a paying job in an industry, take an internship. Be careful, and negotiate what you want to get out of the experience, just as you would when agreeing to work for any employer. Internships are the time when employers are in the business of teaching about an industry and a particular job.
Yes, post-docs and internships can be total scams. That’s why you have to choose carefully, and to check out programs thoroughly. Ask employers for references. Ask questions.
Fair employment, within the law, is what an employer defines it to be. If you are clever, motivated, hard-working, honest and enjoy what you do, and are good at it, you will eventually have a more concentrated say in how you are employed as you move up the ladder within your industry, because such employees are sought after.
The bottom of the career ladder is where most of us start. Finding a job and holding a job are the two toughest jobs there are, I think.
posted by spqr on March 31st, 2008 at 8:51 pmThis issue reaches far beyond the field of journalism or publishing, in fact it is a brilliant attempt by A2 to further the suppression of young adults that is already occurring nation wide. Internships are by far overrated and often hold little if any significance for future employers, and by including language as such, the city exempts itself from moral responsibility: fair and equal employment opportunities for all. Displaced middle aged workers are now competing with Joe B.A. holder and are winning with less education and experience simply because of their age. This is also a great money saver for the city, and sends a message to the youth from the city: we are not interested in your future. Other attempts have been made by cities in the south such as retirement centers in AZ ad FL, including language in their government that is directed at potential new young residents. The current generation is “expected” to be educated, and regardless of attainment, older generations still associate “experience” with the ability to perform in a position. Is this a coincidence? After attaining my B.S. I didn’t believe I would be handed a key to a corner office, and certainly didn’t think the other 200,000 unemployed people in this state would let me get to the front of the line. Its hard to see the big picture when you live within a 5 mile circle surrounded by reality…..
posted by Kevin on April 1st, 2008 at 10:16 am“So, from my perspective, fair working conditions are dictated by state and federal laws, first and foremost.”
Really?
Adam Smith thought they’d be bounded by morality, first and foremost.
And I’ve found that employers who do the least possible, who think that the minimum required by law is the proper level for their employees, tend to foster resentment and scheming. Employers who go above and beyond tend to have employees who go above and beyond for them, and employers who are only focused on their own personal success as head of a business tend to have employees who don’t focus enough on their success as employees.
Of course, anyone looking to go into publishing in Michigan should realize that jobs are pretty thin on the ground, especially journalism publishing (books, I can’t really speak to, though I can’t imagine everything is gangbusters).
posted by js on April 1st, 2008 at 10:47 pmAt first, I thought that was a parody/exaggerated statement of the situation: “It’s not OK to pay people slave wages unless they’re in college or doing an internship, trying to frantically gain work qualification and experience.” (in more or less words) It is surprising even a place like Ann Arbor would stoop to such measures. I realize some corporations have tight budgets, but, as the recent GEO strike reiterated, some college students need money to survive, in addition to work experience.
posted by EP on April 2nd, 2008 at 10:44 amSqpr makes a fair point: companies are no longer in the business of molding bright young go-getters into future executives. I don’t know how wise that is; I feel if a company really wants excellence from its employees, it should take the time to develop it. Nobody ‘owes’ an employer a talented pool of experienced applicants. But if spqr says his (or her) business model can’t handle that kind of commitment, I guess I have no choice but to take his (or her) word for it.
Given the diverse and increasingly decentralized nature of our economy, combined with the utter dearth of skills garnered from your average BA degree, I think internships probably are necessary. But this would be easier to stomach if there was more out there in the way of tuition assistance to help kids of average means get through school. It would also help if there were more programs to place students in good positions and offer them financial assistance, so they can eat and work at an internship at the same time. Some schools are doing just that, but it needs to be common practice.
posted by Elise on April 2nd, 2008 at 3:42 pmAgain, when one owns a business one’s perspective is greatly changed. I feel a tremendous responsibility to and for my employees. I am aware every day that decisions I make impact the lives and families of the people whom I employ.
The point I was trying to make is that the go-getters are few and far between. There are many more jobhunters on the market who are fully prepared to take a position, sit and wait for someone to make their lives interesting and their jobs go smoothly. As Elise points out, the skills of an average B.A. holder are shockingly lacking in many aspects. As a result, the competition is fierce in many industries, and students are woefully ill-prepared by colleges in how to seek, hold and thrive in a job.
As for JS and the comments about Adam Smith. I take your meaning. But let’s look at the life of the man. Smith, of course, was a professor of logic, and then enjoyed a royal appointment to the Scottish Customs House while he lived with his mother. Since royal appointments are out, and living with one’s parents after graduating college nowadays can bring on anxiety attacks (for both graduate and parent), we’ll have to content ourselves with simply knowing that some employers are kinder and gentler than others, like old Mr. Fezziwig to whom Scrooge was apprenticed.
It’s very interesting this discussion. I mentor students through the UM Alumni Association, and this conversation mirrors many I’ve had with the students who’ve come to me for mentoring prior to graduation, or before selecting an internship.
posted by spqr on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:13 pmHee hee. I know, Monica: unpaid internships suck when you don’t have the option of living at home. I did it; it sucked; but I was better for the experience.
This thread is a great example of why I don’t vote Democrat anymore. I can’t stand the sense of insistent, entitled victimhood.
And Elise: if only there was some way for people to be motivated enough to learn things on their own in jobs, and the employer just had to make it easy for them to enjoy excelling in their work. If only.
posted by Nick on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 pmYes, Nick: clearly, I’m an advocate for student financial aid because I don’t value hard work and I get my jollies by stifling economic innovation. Clearly.
As AAIO pointed out a while ago, today’s unpaid internship is yesterday’s entry-level job. For better or worse, those jobs are disappearing as the economy favors smaller, more flexible businesses. Increasingly, workers are hired based on their ability to provide a certain set of skills. They move on when their services are no longer needed.
But if the evolving marketplace demands flexibility of its workforce, if we ask workers to accept a measure of economic insecurity, I feel there ought to be some sort of safety net. By safety net, I mean health care, of course. Also tuition assistance, so young workers don’t end up debt slaves after leaving school. And practical job training of some sort, so they can effectively market themselves to clients.
These things aren’t charity, or the demands of a victimized populace. They benefit both workers and business owners, who are freed from caring for employees from post-grad to grave.
posted by Elise on April 2nd, 2008 at 11:45 pmBusiness owners aren’t the ones caring for employees from cradle to grave. It’s true that medical insurance is sometimes included as part of compensation, but that is just split off from salary and wages, such that total labors costs are the same.
posted by JCP2 on April 3rd, 2008 at 8:16 amThe same goes for health insurance provided through a government source. It seems like “free” money, but that comes from taxes, which comes from taxpayers (ie, the employee).
Hey, Nick (and mucho gusto) — can I borrow you guys’ footwear? It looks like my bootstraps aren’t as big or hefty as the ones you used to pull yourselves up by (or are we talking about your parents’?), so maybe you would like to share. Or would that be a handout?
posted by Errata on April 3rd, 2008 at 11:20 am“The same goes for health insurance provided through a government source. It seems like “free” money, but that comes from taxes, which comes from taxpayers (ie, the employee).”
Yes, however that does take the burden off of businesses, especially in regards to the fairly onerous book-keeping and withholding requirements. It may still come from the employees, but the employers then have that capital to invest in growth rather than overhead.
Decoupling pensions and healthcare from being primarily served by the employer and moving towards a social safety net is the most pragmatic choice, especially when regarding places like Michigan, and the heavy costs paid by automakers—it’s consistently cited as one of the things that makes them less competitive against foreign manufacturers.
Fundamentally, we’re dealing with the fact that some people will be unwilling or unable to sufficiently provide for themselves, and our choices are to either let them die or take on the burden as a society. If we take it as a burden, we have to admit that the current system is incredibly inefficient in dealing with the problem, and that it ends up costing us as a society more than other alternate ideas would, even if those alternate ideas could possibly encourage a moral hazard.
It’s similar to why I support laws making seatbelts and motorcycle helmets mandatory: the cost of the uninsured, or inadequately insured, consequences of accidents simply aren’t worth allowing the freedom of not having to wear a seatbelt or a helmet, depending on the conveyance. That money still has to come from somewhere, and it does force people to pay for helmets and for cars to cost more to ensure that they have both seatbelts and other safety systems, but it ends up being cheaper to bundle those fees there than to let people decide on their own whether the risk is worth the expense.
There’s also the concept of second-level freedoms, and people’s ability to judge risk, etc., which all play into this but would be further derails.
posted by js on April 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm“Fundamentally, we’re dealing with the fact that some people will be unwilling or unable to sufficiently provide for themselves, and our choices are to either let them die or take on the burden as a society.”
In modern society, very few people can provide for themselves the level of health care expected. That’s why we have health insurance. Unfortunately, health insurance is not at all like any of the other insurances (auto, fire, life). Those insurances are predicated on specific events that can be predicted on an actuarial scale, and where the payout is very specific and predetermined ahead of time. Health care constantly evolves and there are new costly technologies that are constantly being developed that disrupt prediction of health care costs.
posted by jcp2 on April 3rd, 2008 at 5:28 pm“In modern society, very few people can provide for themselves the level of health care expected.”
there is a flagrant logical fallacy here.
posted by peter honeyman on April 3rd, 2008 at 6:13 pmJCP2—Couple problems. First off, what I was referring to was the unemployed or the under-employed, basically. But even folks who can afford health insurance but choose not to would fall under this rubric—providing care for them often, especially in catastrophic cases, ends up with the health care costs socialized, and socialized in a particularly inefficient way.
Second, while health care evolves more than, say, fire prevention, those costs can very much be dealt with through actuarial tables. How do you think insurance companies get the premiums that they charge?
Basically, we pay more in the US than anyone else, and not for a commiserate level of care. By at least a handful of metrics, like post-heart attack care and even urgent care efficacy, we pay significantly more for health care that does not end up keeping us as healthy as countries that pay less.
The unequal reach of the system we currently have ends up costing us ALL more, even those who have insurance now.
This is why there’s been a growing trend of doctors choosing to forsake insurance claims altogether, in favor of cash payments—it allows them to price affordably without the massive overhead of the insurance bureaucracy.
One of the fundamental failures of both of the current Democratic candidates’ health care plans is that it still ties health care to employment.
posted by js on April 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 pmElise: apologies. I had you confused with Monica.
Errata: I guess I’ll take that as a compliment - I’m still pretty young and haven’t pulled myself up to much of anything just yet. But thanks. My more general point about this discussion thread is that it seems oriented around the assumption that the inability of anyone, even hypothetical “younger workers”, to get everything they want out of working at all times is inevitably the fault of the ill-intentioned powers that be. All I’m saying is that, if that’s your worldview, I don’t know how you get through life. As a point of personal existential philosophy, I’m completely convinced that happiness is impossible without the decision to stop blaming others for the state of one’s life - to take full responsibility for the state of one’s life, whatever that is, and whether you deserve it or not. Until you make that decision, you’re always moving backward, never forward.
As far as the health-insurance portion of this discussion, I’m not touching it with a 50-ft pole. I’ll only say that those who viscerally hate the American healthcare system usually don’t realize what they’re comparing it to. I would have thought that the “Saddam’s Iraq was nothing but happy families and children at play” segment of “Fahrenheit 911″ would have convinced people that Michael Moore was a bullshit artist of the first order, but the response to “Sicko” has shown me we’re not quite there yet. It was odd, to me, that the current discussion of keeping the British NHS solvent by refusing to pay for medical care to the elderly didn’t come up in that film. Nor did Moore manage to interview any relatives of the thousands of elderly French who died in hospitals a few years ago because there was a heat wave and the doctors were all on vacation. But I suppose that’s just nitpicking.
posted by Nick on April 3rd, 2008 at 8:34 pmYeah, if all you’ve got are straw-men about Moore, you might want to stay out of the discussion, especially since your numbers seem pretty mythical and you didn’t manage to remember that a) it was only a couple of hundred for all of France, and b) that the same thing was happening in America, most notably Chicago, at the same time.
posted by js on April 3rd, 2008 at 9:00 pmJS -
“While health care evolves more than, say, fire prevention, those costs can very much be dealt with through actuarial tables. How do you think insurance companies get the premiums that they charge?”
And why do you think the rate of premium increases has been significantly more than the rate of inflation? Because of new costly technologies.
“This is why there’s been a growing trend of doctors choosing to forsake insurance claims altogether, in favor of cash payments—it allows them to price affordably without the massive overhead of the insurance bureaucracy.”
Of course, if you are really sick, you’ll need lab tests, imaging studies, and possible hospitalization, which would not be included in the cash payment for your doctor’s visit, so you’ll need insurance anyway.
Of course, you’ll want to remember that universal insurance and universal access are two separate, but related issues. If the reimbursement rates are too low, practices won’t accept it.
posted by JCP2 on April 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 pmYes, js, any ‘universal healthcare plan’ that ties benefits to jobs is definitely a failure. I’m an independent contractor and freelance writer, so I admit my perspective is skewed. But I know a lot of people my age, who aren’t writers, who continue to wait tables or sling coffee while holding down part time or independent contractor positions in the professional world.
I have to think that, 20 or 30 years ago, these positions would have been salaried jobs with benefits, but it just doesn’t work like that anymore. It takes time to get the necessary skills and experience to break into the marketplace, and even then employees switch jobs frequently. It seems nonsensical to tie healthcare to jobs when jobs aren’t tied to people, so to speak.
posted by Elise on April 4th, 2008 at 2:16 am