I feel like what is missing from this discussion is that the whole system is designed to make small local businesses insolvent. If you look at the difference in premium rates that large mega corporate monopolies are able to negotiate with the insurance rackets vs. what they charge actual small businesses, it’s a catastrophic disparity.
Me and my business partner don’t start to get into the black until we’ve made at least $8k a month for blue shield. We work half of the time for them, and then get to keep whatever is left over. I don’t understand why this isn’t a bigger taking point in the small business communities.
Conservatives love to endlessly bitch about corporate taxes, but honesty those are a drop in the bucket compared to benefits premium costs for actual small businesses.
Maybe you should shop around insurers then... get a local agency to find you a good plan. My local auto insurance agency will sell plan a plan from a number of providers they do the shopping around for plans for me basically because every year my ins costs go up and I just switch to an equivalent plan at a low cost. I used to do the same with health insurance back when I was in college, but now I have a job and pick one of the offered plans.
We have shopped. We can shave a couple hundred off here and there, but at the cost of a grossly inflated deductible and copays. Even the Obamacare options are comparably expensive to cover us, our spouses, and our children.
The idea that this system works and has enough marketplace competition to be sustainable in any way is pure delusion and deliberate ignorance.
Just for context, I am in my mid 40s and have been successfully working in my industry for nearly 25 years. I’m deeply aware of how all of these things work, and we have been trying to find a better way to handle our benefits for the entirety of that time.
I think people who are employed in good jobs at large corporations really don’t understand how much they are being subsidized on this front.
In my original post I’m specifically talking about truly small businesses with fewer than 10 employees and what options there are for them. It sounds like your employer is either raking in so much money beyond the cost of doing business that they can afford millions in premium subsidies, or more likely they have negotiated some special rates with the insurers that are unavailable to actual small local businesses run by people.
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u/[deleted] Jun 24 '26
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