4 ms·

I have turned down multiple opportunities to work in the USA for these reasons. A friend told me her story years ago and it made me never want to work there.

I have turned down multiple opportunities to work in the USA for these reasons. A friend told me her story years ago and it made me never want to work there. She was a single mother in her early 30s. Her husband/father of her child died in a traffic accident when the child was very young (around 2yo). When her son was around 6 he developed a chronic medical condition. Not curable but manageable without awful impact to his life. However it was expensive to manage. She had decent insurance where she worked so it wasn't a massive issue (I think she paid around $200/month for medication). However she was being sexual harassed and bullied by the company owner. She tried for years to change jobs but couldn't. Many times she was offered a job but the insurance package wasn't as good and so she could not afford the medication her son needed with the changes. She was effectively held hostage with a boss who used to make her life miserable because of a healthcare plan. She was scared to go to work but she had no choice. No family support, etc. It took her over four years to finally be free of that place when she moved country for a better life for her and her son (which is how we met and became friends). She is a wonderful person who is doing amazing now. Last we spoke she was happily married. Not spoken in a while but think I will give her a call tonight to catch up. Thanks for the indirect reminder to do so.

scarface74 7y ago
I don’t understand for the life of me why any American (I am one) thinks that the status quo where your insurance is tied to your job isn’t insane.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Everyone understands it's insane, but the people with the power to change it have fantastic employer-provided health care, so why would they change things? In all seriousness, if tax laws were changed to eliminate the employer advantage, things would change. But until then...
  - scarface74 7y ago
    I just got my tax information for the year. My insurance is pretty good. I pay around $100 a month for family coverage, my company pays $21000 a year to subsidize it. But, I still think it’s insane. We’ve made all sorts of decisions because of employee provided health insurance. My now-wife met at work. We knew that our company was on its last legs, she took a job right before she was laid off making less money just to make sure that she had insurance for her and her sons (we weren’t married at the time). I was laid off when the company was sold but I got a contract with one of our clients. I first looked for insurance on the open market. No one would sell me insurance because of a pre-existing condition. My “condition” wasn’t anything like cancer and I was part time fitness instructor, and ran half marathons within the last year. Sure I could get CORBA, which I did, but less than four months later the acquiring company cancelled their insurance plan and outsourced all development to India. I proposed to my wife and we were planning to get married in six months. She thought it was crazy I was helping to support her (she took a lower paying job) and paying insurance. She said let’s go to the courthouse and get married so I can get on her insurance. She now works part time for the school system mostly so we can have insurance while I jump back and forth between salaried jobs and contract jobs.
oceanghost 7y ago
I was in a similar situation. My wife didn't work, and I was doing the team lead thing. The moment my wife became pregnant, the employer immediately became abusive. I'm talking about working nights, weekends, mornings, late at night, and working on Christmas, on Thanksgiving. No amount of effort seemed to satisfy them. One day, I was working on this feature that exercised the system in a way that had never been done before, and it was going predictably terrible. I had been working since 4:30 am, it was something like 8:00 pm, I couldn't even see straight I was so tired. I get up to go home and get some rest, and my manager says, "Oceanghost! I need to know when this feature is going to ready and tested!" I just said, "Have a nice night." I never wrote another line of code for that company. They fired me for "Sending a rude email" a few days later. This is really what those opposed to universal health care want—a society where you have no dignity or power or ability to stand up for yourself.

scarface74 7y ago

I don’t understand for the life of me why any American (I am one) thinks that the status quo where your insurance is tied to your job isn’t insane.

DuskStar 7y ago
Everyone understands it's insane, but the people with the power to change it have fantastic employer-provided health care, so why would they change things? In all seriousness, if tax laws were changed to eliminate the employer advantage, things would change. But until then...
- scarface74 7y ago
  I just got my tax information for the year. My insurance is pretty good. I pay around $100 a month for family coverage, my company pays $21000 a year to subsidize it. But, I still think it’s insane. We’ve made all sorts of decisions because of employee provided health insurance. My now-wife met at work. We knew that our company was on its last legs, she took a job right before she was laid off making less money just to make sure that she had insurance for her and her sons (we weren’t married at the time). I was laid off when the company was sold but I got a contract with one of our clients. I first looked for insurance on the open market. No one would sell me insurance because of a pre-existing condition. My “condition” wasn’t anything like cancer and I was part time fitness instructor, and ran half marathons within the last year. Sure I could get CORBA, which I did, but less than four months later the acquiring company cancelled their insurance plan and outsourced all development to India. I proposed to my wife and we were planning to get married in six months. She thought it was crazy I was helping to support her (she took a lower paying job) and paying insurance. She said let’s go to the courthouse and get married so I can get on her insurance. She now works part time for the school system mostly so we can have insurance while I jump back and forth between salaried jobs and contract jobs.

oceanghost 7y ago

I was in a similar situation. My wife didn't work, and I was doing the team lead thing. The moment my wife became pregnant, the employer immediately became abusive. I'm talking about working nights, weekends, mornings, late at night, and working on Christmas, on Thanksgiving. No amount of effort seemed to satisfy them. One day, I was working on this feature that exercised the system in a way that had never been done before, and it was going predictably terrible. I had been working since 4:30 am, it was something like 8:00 pm, I couldn't even see straight I was so tired. I get up to go home and get some rest, and my manager says, "Oceanghost! I need to know when this feature is going to ready and tested!" I just said, "Have a nice night." I never wrote another line of code for that company. They fired me for "Sending a rude email" a few days later. This is really what those opposed to universal health care want—a society where you have no dignity or power or ability to stand up for yourself.