social insurance

Examples of social insurance in the following topics:

• Social Insurance

  • Social insurance differs from welfare in that the beneficiary's contributions to the program are taken into account.
  • Medicare is an example of a social insurance program, while Medicaid is an example of a welfare one.
  • In the United States, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance are among the most well-known forms of social insurance.
  • Social Security in the U.S. is primarily the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) federal insurance program.
  • Social Security is one of the best-known social insurance programs in the United States.

• Corporate and Payroll Taxes

  • These often cover advance payment of income tax, social security contributions, and various insurances, such as, unemployment and disability.
  • The charges paid by the employer usually cover the employer's funding of the social security system, and other insurance programs.

• Pensions and Unemployment Insurance

  • Another federal agency, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, insures retiree benefits under traditional private pensions; a series of laws enacted in the 1980s and 1990s boosted premium payments for this insurance and stiffened requirements holding employers responsible for keeping their plans financially healthy.
  • Although the program is run by a federal agency, the Social Security Administration, its funds come from employers and employees through payroll taxes.
  • Many Americans considered ensuring the financial health of Social Security to be one of the most important domestic policy issues at the turn of the century.
  • Unlike Social Security, unemployment insurance, also established by the Social Security Act of 1935, is organized as a federal-state system and provides basic income support for unemployed workers.
  • The federal government also assesses an unemployment insurance tax of its own on employers.

• Current Issues in Health Care

  • There are also social welfare programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.
  • The insurers negotiate rates with hospitals for different procedures.
  • This results in insurers refusing to insure these patients.
  • Antitrust: Previously, insurance companies were immune to antitrust laws.
  • The ACA will only work if both healthy and sick people alike buy insurance: if the healthy choose to pay the fine for not having insurance and only the sick buy insurance, then costs will increase.

• Institutions and Costs

  • Social institutions and organizations are a social response to reduce the costs of exchange and eminent domain.
  • Social institutions also facilitate and enforce reciprocity.
  • Consequently, the institutions that are prevalent at any point in time may lag behind environmental, technological and social changes.
  • The insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and medical industries have more interest in the social institutions that influence the delivery of health care than individuals.
  • The insurance and health care providers (doctors, pharmaceutical, hospitals and insurance industries and firms) have a vested interest in maintaining the system that maintains their sources of revenue.

• Defining Unemployment

  • Unemployment wastes resources, generates redistributive pressures and distortions, increases poverty, limits labor mobility, and promotes social unrest and conflict.
  • Social: an economy that has high unemployment is not using all of its resources efficiently, specifically labor.
  • Demand side solutions: many countries aid unemployed workers through social welfare programs.
  • Individuals receive unemployment benefits including insurance, compensation, welfare, and subsidies to aid in retraining.

• Where a Dollar Spent on Health Care Goes: Introducing the Inputs to Health Care

  • Health care has many inputs and a variety of incumbents, namely insurance providers, administrators, governments, and pharmaceuticals.
  • Insurance Providers: There is a divider between most medical service consumers and their providers, and this is the insurance company.
  • The insurance companies command a huge profit and represent a substantial part of the medical price tag.
  • Government: The role of government in health care is fiercely debated in the United States, but in most of the developed world the government is essentially the provider of health care plans (using social services models to consolidate tax revenues to be allocated for this service).
  • This creates enormous inefficiency in the system and reduces the economic viability of operating in these countries for insurance providers.

• Defining Health, Health Care, and Medical Care

  • Health care is a significant concern for patients, insurance companies, governments, businesses, health care providers, researchers, and non-profits.
  • Evaluation of the Whole System (Box F): This is where the government factors in, particularly in countries with a more socialized system for health care, alongside the comparisons both internally and externally.
  • There are many large health care insurance providers out there, offering this service to prospective beneficiaries.
  • These institutions are also quite complicated, and require their own insurances against liability due to the high consequences in the field.
  • This underlines a social issue: how can we improve healthcare economics to maximize value and minimize costs?

• Disposable Income

  • For the purposes of calculating the amount of income subject to garnishment, United States federal law defines disposable income as an individual's compensation (including salary, overtime, bonuses, commission, and paid leave) after the deduction of health insurance premiums and any amounts required to be deducted by law.
  • Amounts required to be deducted by law include federal, state, and local taxes, state unemployment and disability taxes, social security taxes, and other garnishments or levies, but does not include such deductions as voluntary retirement contributions and transportation deductions.
  • It is total personal income after subtracting taxes and typical expenses (such as rent or mortgage, utilities, insurance, medical fees, transportation, property maintenance, child support, food and sundries, etc.) needed to maintain a certain standard of living.

• The Special Case of Banking

  • One of the most important of these regulations is deposit insurance.
  • Deposit insurance was designed to prevent such runs on banks.
  • The government's bank-insurance agency, known as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, pays off the depositors, using funds collected as insurance premiums from the banks themselves.
  • It allowed banks, securities, and insurance firms to form financial conglomerates that could market a range of financial products including mutual funds, stocks and bonds, insurance, and automobile loans.
  • But it ran into difficulties again in the 1980s and 1990s -- in part because of social regulation.