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Wait, why should she lose her flexible medical benefits? Shouldn't recovery of the expense fraud be a separate legal process from taking of personal medical acc

by dv_dt 8y ago

Wait, why should she lose her flexible medical benefits? Shouldn't recovery of the expense fraud be a separate legal process from taking of personal medical accounts? Why do we connect medical benefits to employers?

vertexFarm 8y ago
Good question. It's a very strange method of motivation or coercion that we've all just kind of accepted into our lives, and we feel lucky to even have that. Well all of us in the US, anyway. For some reason it doesn't work that way in most places on earth. Medical job-lock is a real thing that happens, and most of us just discount the possibility completely until an unexpected problem crops up. AMHIK. Everyone be grateful for your health while you can, and plan for the future.
jasode 8y ago
>Wait, why should she lose her flexible medical benefits? Because it was one of those "healthcare savings flex accounts" where the company puts in "virtual dollars" to pay for some types of health care. Unlike unused vacation days that requires payout on the last paycheck by law, or a 401k account, this type of "flex account" is really a convenient accounting category that's administered purely by corporate discretion. If the employee gets fired for just cause, the company decided it didn't want to let him/her walk away with the flex account. For the retirees that left on good terms, they do. It's just the way they did things. I think the idea is that the the ex-employee is now viewed as a criminal so the company feels justified in withdrawing discretionary benefits. The regular type of employee health insurance that one could extend with Obamacare or COBRA was a separate thing. (Ninja edit to reply below: it was not an FSA or "cafeteria" plan that deducted real dollars from the employee's paycheck. It was literally "virtual dollars" that the company allocated to the employee. But the virtual money turned into real money when the retiree used it to pay Medicare premiums. If there's an industry-wide jargon for this type of virtual bank account for healthcare that the employee never directly contributed to, I don't know what it is.)
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Maybe you're talking about a different kind of account, but FSA dollars come out of the employee's own paycheck.
  - cosmie 8y ago
    Sounds like they're referring to an HRA account[1][2]. It's a fully employer-funded, employer-owned, and employer-controlled reimbursement account. It's similar in function to an HSA account, but it doesn't actually belong to the employee and doesn't follow the employee when they're terminated. My employer offers both HRA and HSA based high deductible plans, as well as a PPO plan. The HRA plan is definitely the best plan on paper, especially since the unused HRA funds rollover[3], but a huge caveat being that you lose any HRA balance that you've accumulated over time if you ever leave or get terminated, since it doesn't actually belong to you. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hra.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hra.asp [2] http://www.aetna.com/producer/aetnalink/2009-4q/natlink_hra_4q09.html http://www.aetna.com/producer/aetnalink/2009-4q/natlink_hra_... [3] Employers have significant leeway over how the HRA is structured, what it will cover, whether you have to use any FSA funds you have beforehand, whether unused balances will rollover or reset next year, etc. My employer happens to have a really good HRA structure, including rollover balances and using HRA funds before FSA funds.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - jmalicki 8y ago
    FSA dollars come out of your own paycheck, but any unspent dollars revert to your employer when your employment terminates. On the other hand, if you save $2500/yr in your FSA, spend it in one month after only after a little over $200 has been deducted from your paycheck, then quit, you just got an extra $2300 out of your employer you didn't pay for, so it goes both ways.
- DoubleCribble 8y ago
  HRA - Health Reimbursement Arrangement, perhaps. They are entirely funded by the employer and do not involve paycheck deductions like an FSA or HSA would.
desdiv 8y ago
>Why do we connect medical benefits to employers? It could arguably be traced back to the war time rationing of WWII: >To combat inflation, the 1942 Stabilization Act was passed. Designed to limit employers' freedom to raise wages and thus to compete on the basis of pay for scarce workers, the actual result of the act was that employers began to offer health benefits as incentives instead. [0] https://www.griffinbenefits.com/employeebenefitsblog/history-of-employer-sponsored-healthcare https://www.griffinbenefits.com/employeebenefitsblog/history... [1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-obamacare-health-care-employers-20170224-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-ob...
- jandrese 8y ago
  Ironically that is probably a contributing factor for the lack of socialized healthcare in the US. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Almost certainly. And then post-WWII, good medical benefit plans got enshrined in a lot of collective bargaining agreements and became pretty much the standard for large employers generally. At which part, taking them away is going to be very difficult.

by dv_dt 8y ago

vertexFarm 8y ago

Good question. It's a very strange method of motivation or coercion that we've all just kind of accepted into our lives, and we feel lucky to even have that. Well all of us in the US, anyway. For some reason it doesn't work that way in most places on earth. Medical job-lock is a real thing that happens, and most of us just discount the possibility completely until an unexpected problem crops up. AMHIK. Everyone be grateful for your health while you can, and plan for the future.

jasode 8y ago

>Wait, why should she lose her flexible medical benefits? Because it was one of those "healthcare savings flex accounts" where the company puts in "virtual dollars" to pay for some types of health care. Unlike unused vacation days that requires payout on the last paycheck by law, or a 401k account, this type of "flex account" is really a convenient accounting category that's administered purely by corporate discretion. If the employee gets fired for just cause, the company decided it didn't want to let him/her walk away with the flex account. For the retirees that left on good terms, they do. It's just the way they did things. I think the idea is that the the ex-employee is now viewed as a criminal so the company feels justified in withdrawing discretionary benefits. The regular type of employee health insurance that one could extend with Obamacare or COBRA was a separate thing. (Ninja edit to reply below: it was not an FSA or "cafeteria" plan that deducted real dollars from the employee's paycheck. It was literally "virtual dollars" that the company allocated to the employee. But the virtual money turned into real money when the retiree used it to pay Medicare premiums. If there's an industry-wide jargon for this type of virtual bank account for healthcare that the employee never directly contributed to, I don't know what it is.)

cimmanom 8y ago
Maybe you're talking about a different kind of account, but FSA dollars come out of the employee's own paycheck.
- cosmie 8y ago
  Sounds like they're referring to an HRA account[1][2]. It's a fully employer-funded, employer-owned, and employer-controlled reimbursement account. It's similar in function to an HSA account, but it doesn't actually belong to the employee and doesn't follow the employee when they're terminated. My employer offers both HRA and HSA based high deductible plans, as well as a PPO plan. The HRA plan is definitely the best plan on paper, especially since the unused HRA funds rollover[3], but a huge caveat being that you lose any HRA balance that you've accumulated over time if you ever leave or get terminated, since it doesn't actually belong to you. [1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hra.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/hra.asp [2] http://www.aetna.com/producer/aetnalink/2009-4q/natlink_hra_4q09.html http://www.aetna.com/producer/aetnalink/2009-4q/natlink_hra_... [3] Employers have significant leeway over how the HRA is structured, what it will cover, whether you have to use any FSA funds you have beforehand, whether unused balances will rollover or reset next year, etc. My employer happens to have a really good HRA structure, including rollover balances and using HRA funds before FSA funds.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- jmalicki 8y ago
  FSA dollars come out of your own paycheck, but any unspent dollars revert to your employer when your employment terminates. On the other hand, if you save $2500/yr in your FSA, spend it in one month after only after a little over $200 has been deducted from your paycheck, then quit, you just got an extra $2300 out of your employer you didn't pay for, so it goes both ways.
DoubleCribble 8y ago
HRA - Health Reimbursement Arrangement, perhaps. They are entirely funded by the employer and do not involve paycheck deductions like an FSA or HSA would.

desdiv 8y ago

>Why do we connect medical benefits to employers? It could arguably be traced back to the war time rationing of WWII: >To combat inflation, the 1942 Stabilization Act was passed. Designed to limit employers' freedom to raise wages and thus to compete on the basis of pay for scarce workers, the actual result of the act was that employers began to offer health benefits as incentives instead. [0] https://www.griffinbenefits.com/employeebenefitsblog/history-of-employer-sponsored-healthcare https://www.griffinbenefits.com/employeebenefitsblog/history... [1] https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-obamacare-health-care-employers-20170224-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/commentary/ct-ob...

jandrese 8y ago
Ironically that is probably a contributing factor for the lack of socialized healthcare in the US. The law of unintended consequences strikes again.
- ghaff 8y ago
  Almost certainly. And then post-WWII, good medical benefit plans got enshrined in a lot of collective bargaining agreements and became pretty much the standard for large employers generally. At which part, taking them away is going to be very difficult.