Re: Health Insurance. Does anybody here remember a time when

[lamp_shade]

an engineer (electrical/mechanical/software) for example could “shop” for a job and choose the employer who offered the best benefits? Companies looking for real talent would offer highly competitive benefits packages (health & life insurance, pension & profit sharing plans, educational assistance, etc.). That was back in the 60s-70s. A company that didn’t offer at least a health insurance plan (and there were some who didn’t) were doomed to fail. I remember that time.

[dipsydoodle]

1. Nope

But then I'm UK and we've got the NHS anyway.

[Selatius]

2. You're lucky. Health insurance didn't factor into what job you were choosing to take.

For a lot of Americans, health insurance coverage enters the discussion as far as benefits packages go. In countries like France or the UK or Germany or Japan, it isn't even discussed because it's considered a matter of course.

[dipsydoodle]

10. Private medical cover in addition to standard NHS cover

may actually have some bearing on the subject even here but where offered its taxable as a benefit to the employee. The advantage in such cases to the both the employer and the employee may be that corporate rates are lower than private individual rates.

BTW - Private medical cover here, going back to the '70s, has never covered pre-existing conditions and is never likely to do so.

[ejpoeta]

5. that must be awful! /snark i wish people in this country would wake up.

try explaining to them that if they get sick and can't work anymore what's going to happen to their insurance!! health insurance has no business being attached to employment anymore. made sense when a person worked for one company for their entire adult life before they retired.... but that is not the reality anymore. and how many end up with no insurance or substandard underinsurance which can be even worse than no insurance in some cases. this piecemeal crap is costing us all!!

[dipsydoodle]

15. We know no different

We've had it since 1948 believe it or not. It was partly to help make up lost lives in WW2 by ensuring the health of children. When I was a kid younsgters got free powdered milk, concentrated unsweetened orange , malt and cod liver oil as well. Not sure which of those remain available for babies. We had free milk at school too but I think Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher took that away in the '70s - hence her name.

BTW - it isn't "free" other than for those unable to pay for whatever reason including children but it is socialised health care.

[ejpoeta]

16. it makes the most sense. imagine paying into your health insurance

through your work for 15 years. now you get sick and can't work anymore. now that insurance you just paid into without really using for all that time goes away and you end up (if you are lucky) on medicaid or something. so you just paid into a 'pool' you've just been ejected from. if we had single payer and all paid into it, then we would get when we needed from the same system instead of now getting ejected and screwed. instead of paying through an employer we could have it taken out of our paychecks like taxes are withheld just as we do now.... just would go into a single payer system

[NNN0LHI]

11. Does NHS include prescription drugs, dentistry and vision care?

That was covered by my employer in 1973.

Don

[dipsydoodle]

12. Yes

And for old farts like me prescriptions are free too - for all age 60 or over male or female.

Denistry doesn't cover cosmetic work and there are fixed max charges for other work. Hygenist appts are £40 and I have 3 a year. NHS routine dental check ups are about £16 each twice yearly.

I've lost sight, no pun intended , of opticians charges cos my check ups are free anyway and I always pay for designer frames from choice - that way I can colour match clothes. :)

I know from my mother that hearing aids are chargeable and they're not exactly cheap either.

[madrchsod]

3. yes...those were the days

quit a job in the morning and if you wanted to get another that afternoon. several places i applied to actually bragged about their benefits. i was`t an engineer i was just a young guy that wanted a job.

want to really feel bad(i know i do)- my first job was at a union hot steel drop forge plant. benefits-full insurance within 30 days,cost of living raises every three months,raise every year,able to miss 10% of hours each quarter,and two weeks vacation the first year. we ran three shifts 5 to 6 days a week crewing 13 drop forge hammer crews plus machine shop,finishing,and qc.

today that business has one operating hot steel forging press.

[ejpoeta]

7. i was watching a thing about ww2 and how they made so many munitions and

all that for the war. they showed video of truckloads of bombs and bullets et cetra... made in the us by rosie the riveter. the biggest stockpile and helped us win the war. We couldn't do that today. we don't have the manufacturing capabilities to do that if we needed to. it's kind of scary to think about it. DO we even have steel manufacturing here anymore? i know that almost everything has been moved overseas or to mexico.

btw.... you are lucky if you get a week vacation and 3 sick days nowadays. bob got two weeks i am not sure how long he had to wait. i think next year he gets another week. he never uses it all.... saves a week in case something happens and he needs a day or two like if someone got sick or something. he has also told his boss he won't work any overtime and would refuse a raise because thanks to our 'choice' of health insurance we applied for family health plus. we are just under the cap. how many are just over.

[ejpoeta]

4. who values employees anymore.... and good employees. any company i know treats everyone as

expendable. my husband's company pays a lot to hire each person... they do background checks and send them to training. they got rid of any semblance of any decent health insurance and all that is left of our 'choice' is united healthcare with a $5000 deductible. they treat the employees like there's a line waiting to take the job if they don't want it. each area, well at least the rochester area, has like 3 or 4 guys. not enough to get the work done as it is. now imagine someone is sent to training like my hubby was last week. but they expect them to be able to get all this stuff done. haven't gotten a raise in 3 years. a company that treated it's employees decent.... with respect, listened to their ideas when you keep saying you need to cut costs.... but they don't. they seem to not care. and in response their employees aren't going to care either. and the customer service will go to shit.... it's not about money either..... it's about respect and treating a person like they are valuable to the company. but what company does that these days!! you show me a company that treats their workers well and i'll show you a company that probably has workers who go the extra mile for their employer.

[ixion]

6. I remember those days, albeit was too young to be in the work force

but I do remember.

[Scuba]

8. Anybody remember when health insurance was about spreading risk, not making profits?

[Lesleymo]

9. Absolutely. I remember when it was taken for granted.

You got a job, you got health insurance. If you got sick, you went to any doctor without asking if they were in your network. Your insurance paid the bill. There were no $5,000 deductibles, complicated health savings plans, or heartless recissions that kick people to the curb because they have the audacity to cost the insurance company too much money.

... sigh ... those were the days.

[Vinca]

13. I remember that. I also remember it as a time when you didn't

ever have to think about health insurance. It was there. It was reliable. It actually paid for everything. Then it morphed into a greedy, profit-driven industry. Patients turned into consumers. Stockholders were more important than sick people.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. Yes, a time when your qualifications and work ethic meant high wages and excellent benefits.

P.S. A time when companies had 'valued employees' and before we all became 'human resources'.

[raccoon]

17. Off to Greatest with you! nt

[burnsei sensei]

18. Ideally,

under a capitalist system, the laborer is a shopper in the job market.
Looking for the best package and then accepting the job.
But we've turned it into a kind of neo-manorialism or serfdom; a situation in which the worker is bound, impoverished, and precarious.
It's actually not "we" who made it that way, but the proto-robber-barons of the Antebellum Era who made it.
We are complicit in our acceptance of it.
But that can change.

[raccoon]

19. I can remember when state/county employees had great benefits.

Still do...IF you're lucky enough to have a FULL-TIME job.

More and more county governments hire part-time employees, no benes, no security, no nothing.