Quote:
Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Employer-contributed 401(k)s were considered "mandatory" benefits by competitors in my industry. Then someone realized that employees might rather have the cash on the barrelhead. Odd that. Then the principle was extended to health insurance as well, which became not an employer-paid benefit but rather an employee-paid benefit, with a choice of plans. Remarkably, enrollment in the cheaper plan skyrocketed. Odder that.
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That's entirely predictable, but merely a fascinating example of how the market works when the employer goes from paying premiums to paying-through those premiums to employees so they have the discretionary income from employment to cover premiums for private health insurance. Here, the "employee-funded" option we're talking about was Medicaid. Which, I'm sure you realize, is means-tested.
Rather clever of Wal-Mart to shift the cost of maintaining a healthy workforce onto a public good. Kind of like planting my marijuana plants in a national wildlife refuge to save the fixed costs of land purchase.
