Originally Posted By DAR <<Sorry, DAR, you sound self-satisfied just because you have pretty good medical coverage at a very reasonable price. But just suppose overnight your company changes their coverage by either charging you $800 a month or lays you off for office workers in India? Will you still sing the same tune?>> I've said it again that will never happen with the company I work for.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>If you want to see why socialized medicine doesn't always work watch the National Geographic special on North Korea, the government hand selects those can be cured. Granted there completely crazy over there and I would hope we would never get to that point.<< I don't think that anyone is saying that we should become a Stalinist, Communist nation. Having a single payor insurance system doesn't mean that healthcare practitioners will all become government employees. They can retain their private practices. But they will no longer need an army of clerks to handle insurance billing.
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>I've said it again that will never happen with the company I work for.<< Never say never. And never underestimate the greed of corporate America. You might have enlightened management today, but what about the next CEO?
Originally Posted By fkurucz >>Between my share of insurance and the flex-spending, I'm paying about $500/mo. That's just for me and my wife.<< And how are the working poor supposed to pay this much?
Originally Posted By DAR <<Are you sure that youy work can't be offshored?>> Not the specific work I do. It consists of viewing leagal documents, preparing specific forms. Talking directly to our clients. It's taken me close to seven years to learn everything I have in my department and I still haven't learned everything yet. In fact there's about 40 people in my department who haven't learned everything and some have been there 25 years plus. It would cost too much to retrain a new group to learn our work.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Never say never. And never underestimate the greed of corporate America. You might have enlightened management today, but what about the next CEO?>> Our home office is and always will be based in Milwaukee. In fact they are builiding additional home offices to meet with the demands of hiring more people.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan Okay, well you have managed to somehow secure a job for life at a company that is somehow not at all impacted by normal economic forces and nothing could possibly ever happen that would change those circumstances. Be that as it may, it doesn't address the reality that millions of people in this country are without insurance and more and more will be as other companies continue to cut back on health benefits. And unless the solution is letting them die in the street, we wind up with a system that is wildly inefficient and expensive. We can do better.
Originally Posted By jonvn "Not to sound pompus but I work for Northwestern Mutual Life, they only way I lose my job is if I leave the company." Oh my god are you fooling yourself.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Oh my god are you fooling yourself.>> You know nothing about this company.
Originally Posted By DAR <<We can do better>> Sure we can do better, but everytime the government tries to make things better, it costs the taxpayers more money.
Originally Posted By ElKay Oh, brother. Another libertarian idealouge. By extension US taxpayers would better defend the country by contracting armed forces out to the lowest bidder or a friend of Dick Cheney. Hey, DAR, who'd do a more efficient job of attacking Iraq the Russian military or the Chinese? You sound a lot like H. Ross Perot, who got a lot of mileage by complaining about the Federal gov't., until it be widely know that he made his millions by being a Federal contractor computerizing Medicare records. Without the Federal gov't.'s business, Perot wouldn't have had a business.
Originally Posted By mrichmondj << By extension US taxpayers would better defend the country by contracting armed forces out to the lowest bidder or a friend of Dick Cheney. >> We're already doing it. Just go to the Blackwater USA website to see what the future holds if we ever want to contract out our military. They've already got a huge chunk of the "security" business in Iraq.
Originally Posted By DAR <<Oh, brother. Another libertarian idealouge.>> Oh, brother. Another liberal idealogue, let's have the government fix all our problems. You're right I don't want the government involved in health care. I don't want them involved in situation like Katrina. The only issues I support government involvement on is education and the military. I know what your stance is on the military but you can't be anti-education.
Originally Posted By jonvn If you think that in any way shape or form your job is safe from layoff, then you are completely deluded. You can be laid off tomorrow. SOmoene else who can come in and work cheaper than you will be there. They'll train them. Or your department could get rolled in with another one and away you go. You're not immune, and if you think you are, you are wrong.
Originally Posted By DAR <<I don't have to. You are fooling yourself.>> I guess you've worked for them and you know things are run there.
Originally Posted By DAR To enlighten you even more: <a href="http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=572343" target="_blank">http://www.jsonline.com/story/ index.aspx?id=572343</a>
Originally Posted By jonvn I don't care where you work or how they do things. All companies work the same.
