The issue is that, combined with hospital billing shenanigans, health insurance et al is tied to being a full-time employee. If you don't qualify for/can't afford government healthcare programs, you might go bankrupt from the hospital bill for an ambulance ride.
So where does the blame lay: on the USA for not offering public healthcare, or on companies for "exploiting" what is quite clearly a bus-sized loophole in the system?
It's not a loophole, it's part of the point of being a contractor. You have a temporary relationship that doesn't have all the requirements of a full-time employee. When I hire a handyman to come do some repairs at my house, I shouldn't have to provide health insurance for him.
On the USA for not offering real public healthcare. The USA spends twice as much of its cumulative wealth on healthcare and has worse outcomes for all but a small minority who are willing to pay top dollar. In relation to how any other first world country operates, health insurance premiums in the USA are effectively a privatised, for-profit system of taxation.
The system is basically a middle finger to the bottom 50% of the country — by increasing poverty, by accentuating the consequences of poverty, and impeding the upward mobility of people in poverty.
Every contractor I’ve known has done so with the downside being what you said, and choosing the upside of more flexible work or higher pay. People don’t seem to be forced into contracting?
Sure I guess the same way I have a choice between having a job and unemployment. Not an ideal system I agree, but until we get universal income or my startup IPOs thems the breaks.
