Health insurance as negotiation tool?

[bethymaester]

I don't have all official details yet, but I have an urgent care job offering $45/hr and a travel assessment job offering $53/hr. I like the urgent care setting better and I don't need any benefits as far as health insurance and all that, so would that be something I could negotiate with the urgent care job for a higher hourly rate? They're a private new urgent care, not part of a chain. I don't know if it costs the employer per employee or not to provide health insurance. Also, do I tell them what the other job is offering?

[Jules A, MSN]

Although both of them sound way low to me I would definitely tell them what the other place is offering but I always volunteer to show copies of my present check stub, contract or the offer letter when I'm using another position as leverage. I don't ever want there to be any doubt that I mean what I say and can back it up. It could be as simple as them not being aware of what current NP wages are in the area. Hopefully they aren't just trying to be cheap.

Good luck.

[PG2018]

Yeah you looking at 90k plus change for the UC job. The thing with group health plans is that they are often paying the company's portion of the premiums whether the position is filled or not. You can certainly ask, but it won't necessarily help your cause as they may be stuck with the insurance whether you accept it or not. But definitely say I've got another position offering me another 16+k a year.

When I was in an administrative capacity with state government it always rubbed me raw that unknown to taxpayers the state was still paying what was referred to as matching on unfilled positions - even positions that were intentionally unfilled. But that was still a portion of each departments budget as well. At that level it was all legislature approved thougj so I couldn't ever give anybody a raise, etc.