A side note

[blamebrampton]

Dear Americans,
Outside of your strange, strange country, most of the developed world has this marvellous thing which we like to call health care for all. I'm reading an interesting mpreg (that will teach me not to read the warnings!*) story from hd_hols and the poverty-stricken pregnant one is in despair as his health insurance will not cover it. On the off-chance it was written by someone on my flist, the good for society news is that in the UK, this is not the problem you might think it is! And I have my fingers crossed that in the US, it won't be for much longer, either.

(And if anyone is planning to respond telling me that socialised healthcare is evil, I will LAUGH AT YOU, and then I will QUOTE REAMS OF STATISTICS until you FLEE.)

XXX
BB

* And yes, my dislike of mpreg is not supported by the excellent writing that occurs within that genre and the imaginative plots that many superior writers bring to bear on the concept. But I still don't like it!

Comments

[pingrid.livejournal.com]

I don't know the American system in enough detail to be able to work out how to fix it, but I think it's pretty obvious what DOESN'T work: being dependent upon having the right employer to get proper medical treatment without going personally bankrupt. Especially in a country where workers' rights aren't entirely up to scratch. I can't believe anyone who doesn't have the pure luck to have such benefits through employment would argue against some model of socialised health care.

Sure, you can't just plop any old country's system onto the US and expect it to work, but there isn't the person alive who can convince me that the current US system is the best a resourceful country like the US can to with the huge amounts of money it uses on health care!

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

I have wonderful benefits from my employer. However, what this does is handcuff me (golden handcuffs) to this job. There's only a few companies in my area that have equal or better benefits. It's ridiculous.

If we could get these benefits off the employers books, companies wouldn't be failing and they could actually keep their promise of paying pensions to their retired employees.

It would also be a boon to those who want to be self-employed or start their own business.

My neighbor down the street suffers from dibilitating migraines. I mean she has maybe 1 good day out of the week. Anyway, there was an experimental operation (won't go into details) and the insurance wouldn't cover it. They offered to pay cash but no doctor in the US would do it because of a possible malpractice case. They flew to England and paid cash. It only helped a little, unfortunately. So it shows that even with money, the US cannot provide everything because of malpractise reasons. *sigh*

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Quick question, and this is something that I have been meaning to learn more about for some time, are your companies allowed to not protect employee benefits, such as pension entitlements?

[romaine24.livejournal.com]

There are very few companies that provide pensions anymore. Mainly only those that have unions. *g* Gov't jobs (state and federal) still have pensions and healthcare after retirement.

When a company goes bankrupt, the pension entitlements, such as healthcare, can be taken away during the restructure of the company or if the company just goes down. I'm pretty ignorant on the subject matter, though. Medicare does cover everyone over a certain age. I know at the minimum its age 65, but it could be 62, so they at least have that.

It's a mess, that is all I know. I honestly could've retired last year if it wasn't for the benefits I receive from my company. Now I'm going to stick it out for another 3 1/2 years so I can receive a pension and healthcare later on.