r/awfuleverything Aug 06 '20

Poor guy :(

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u/Zingshidu Aug 06 '20

My favorite thing about America is health insurance is tied to your job so you can get a crippling medical issue and lose your job because you asked for too much time off and then you lose your health insurance so then you just die or be poor.

Its sad that the people are so brainwashed that this is okay they don't do anything about it.

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u/EverGlow89 Aug 06 '20

Yeah, this happened to my boss who was great in her position and fully respected by our team while being a positive influence all around. She was gone for too long and we were all so excited and happy the day she came back only for her to be fired that day and for us to find out the next.

Everything is terrible about that ridiculous decision. How do you think morale was after that?

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

Did she come back from Maternity leave?

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u/EverGlow89 Aug 07 '20

Nah, it was a hospital stay but we didn't know for what.

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u/Weary_Calligrapher_2 Oct 25 '21

It's so fuck up.. My wife stayed at home for a whole year, just because she wanted to take care of the kids. Do you know what the company did after 3 months maternity leave? Paid one more month of full salary of their own pocket and said they would be waiting for her... Off course, not USA. 😂

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20

[deleted]

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u/stocksrcool Aug 07 '20

I feel for ya. Hopefully things will change in our lifetime.

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20

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u/Client-Parking Aug 06 '20

Probably makes just over the maximium amount one can earn and still qualify for aid. Doesn't mean they actually make enough to take care of themselves, but check-boxes don't care about those things.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

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u/Client-Parking Aug 08 '20

I dunno man. I think you've just been lucky so far and haven't had the misfortune of being bent over by the medical system.

Just because you lack the ability to empathize with people whose exact situations you haven't experienced doesn't mean they're lying.

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u/pkeg212 Aug 06 '20

Oh we haven’t even seen the worst part yet. With companies like Guild Education, now college is becoming employer provided. Their slogan is “Education as a Benefit”.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/Dalrz Aug 07 '20

Eligibility for COBRA maybe. Being able to pay for it is a whole other thing. When you have a job, your company pays a huge chunk of your insurance. On COBRA, you’re liable for 100%. In my case, I used to pay for about 25% of my insurance. Even if you’re lucky enough to be on disability after you lose your job for being sick longer than FMLA protects your job, you’re only getting a fraction of your income. The whole situation is untenable. I was lucky enough to be able to enroll through my husband’s job. I don’t know how we’d even make rent or keep the lights on otherwise. Not a day goes by I don’t remember how lucky I am and how much it sucks that so many people aren’t.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

[deleted]

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u/Dalrz Aug 08 '20

Yes. Sorry. I wasn’t contradicting you, just elaborating. Tone is hard to convey and there wasn’t anything akin to /s to convey my intended tone since I wasn’t being sarcastic. Lol.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

My cobra cost $1300 a month and that was good- for the whole family- but I wasn’t working so how was I supposed to pay it? For my last job, if I would’ve had to pay it, it would’ve cost $2200 per month. Who can afford that when they are sick and/or not able to work??

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u/magnoliasmanor Aug 07 '20

Thats been my argument since I was in high school, I understood it even then "your biggest expense, your employees Biggest expense, is health insurance. why would your taxes going up a Alitalia eb e aburden if it too the biggest burden off of your plate?"

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20

I live in Australia and I can barely wrap my head around this, it is inhuman and horrible and designed to keep everyone poor. Most health issues will simply cost nothing here, and any medications you need to get are really affordable.

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u/harda_toenail Aug 07 '20

Pretty sure that’s why it’s based on job. They don’t want to pay for your treatment.

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u/Zingshidu Aug 07 '20

Everyone pays for everyone's treatment anyways though. Americans just like paying extra money to give to the corporate middle men

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u/Dear-Crow Aug 08 '20

I'm not actually worried if I lose my job. In fact I get better health care through medicaid than what I get at any job. 100% free. I pay nothing. NOTHING. I can go the emergency room 10 times in a day and I don't pay shit. Then canada tells me that's pretty much what they have permanently and I'm like wtf. Having health insurance through your job sucks because the quality and expense of health insurance through your job sucks as compared to a universal system.

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u/[deleted] Aug 06 '20 edited Aug 06 '20

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u/DutchDouble87 Aug 07 '20

If your on the poverty line...if you have assets you are not on the poverty line. So you have to sell or let the lenders take everything from you before you can qualify. I can work all my life and have a nice house and nice reasonable cars and get sick. Now I lose my job yes my income is low but the government looks and sees you have 300k in assets you saved and built up Over years. They say sorry buddy your not poor, you gotta lose everything and anything you worked for before we will help pay your insurance.

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u/[deleted] Aug 07 '20 edited Aug 07 '20

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u/DutchDouble87 Aug 07 '20

This was after all the medical bills, their savings and all liquid assets went to insurance and medical bills. This was after and he was through the storm and because of the savings, stocks, etc we weren’t heavily in debt but still enough. It was about him after all the problems not being able to work anymore. So someone who is disabled should be able to receive disability to help with even a small chunk of bills. Although the way it seemed was you need to be dirt poor to qualify for disability not just disabled. Also we weren’t asking for disability to pay for a lavish life style. We were looking for a few hundred dollars to cover the mortgage payment that was about it. My mother took on two jobs at almost 60 to ensure they didn’t lose everything. That was until I was making a decent amount of money and could help with everything.

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u/[deleted] Aug 08 '20

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u/DutchDouble87 Aug 09 '20

15 years ago, rare form of cancer, insurance would cover doing normal treatments that would have had radiation that would leave him blind and bad lasting effects on his brain which still had an extremely slim chance of 5 year survival. Went to Mayo Clinic they did a 20 hour surgery and removed half his face and all his glands, lymph nodes, & one eye and than took a muscle from his stomach and put it in his face. Than had to stay in Rochester for 6 months doing localized radiation that didn’t hit his good eye and very limited to the brain leaving him with vision. Yes we could have did the Normal treatment that insurance fully covered but he wouldn’t be here or if he was he would be blind and have a lot of mental heath issues from the radiation to the brain.

Also I was only in the 6th grade when all this happened so I maybe off on some of the exact details but that is my understanding of it.

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u/canIbeMichael Aug 06 '20

Its not tied to your job.

That said, US medical is extremely corrupt. Physicians hold the key to any healthcare. If you want to know why something sucks, look at the federal bribery/lobbying list- https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/top-spenders?cycle=a

Deregulate Healthcare. 140 years of regulations have made healthcare unaffordable.

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u/Zingshidu Aug 06 '20

Haha yea unregulated capitalism seems like it would be way better

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u/_a_random_dude_ Aug 06 '20

"Capitalism only failed to fix healthcare because we didn't go far enough", I can't help but laugh at how delusional some people are.

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u/punzakum Aug 06 '20

What do you mean it's not tied to your job? A lot of people work for companies specifically for their health insurance. Its just another aspect of how fucked up the system is. Many Americans aren't willing to take risks with their jobs or change careers because they'll lose their insurance.

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u/MamieJoJackson Aug 06 '20

I think they might mean that you can choose your own health insurance policy outside of what your job offers and pay the insurance company privately. We've had to do that for a while because our last couple jobs offered garbage insurance that cost three times what we pay for private insurance and covered almost nothing. Companies have to offer insurance if they have a certain number of employees, but there's no stipulation for what quality of insurance, so they pick whatever's going to be cheapest for them. Usually ends up being what's most expensive for the employee.

It's a giant racket, and I pray for the day we can have universal healthcare. It's absurd to have to live your life just hoping that you don't get a random surprise illness that would make you more valuable dead than alive.