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LA Dodgers extends $0 contract for 6th time so player can keep health insurance
- dimator 3y agoi'm sure this is intended as great PR and a nice story, but it just reflects the dystopia that is the uninsured/underinsured way of life in the US.
- cft 3y agoIt also excludes a lot of people from entrepreneurial activity: if you are over 30 or have kids you better have health insurance, and thus work for a big corp instead of bootstrapping a small business. My SOs individual health ins policy went from $250/mo in 2014 to $1000/mo in 2023.
- SubiculumCode 3y agoHe was a great team mate and Dodger. Continue to wish the best for him.
- treyfitty 3y agoYou played for LA? How’d you pivot to tech? I feel like this could be such an amazing story.
- swores 3y agoFans often have opinions on which players are good or bad teammates, I doubt their use of that word means they themselves were on the team (not that it's impossible, just very unlikely).
- SubiculumCode 3y agohis teammates said he was a great teammate and they have advocated for him for years.
- SubiculumCode 3y agolol. oh yeah. from baseball to neuroscience. I got it all man
- brianbreslin 3y agoDoes the MLB Players association provide lifetime health insurance the way NFL PA and NBA PA do after x years of tenure? It is quite unfortunate that he has to rely on the graciousness of a former employer to get medical care. Any ownership or leadership change and this could be in jeopardy.
- ok_dad 3y agoToo bad America doesn’t have nationalized health insurance for everyone. The only argument against it that I can see is that people think standards of care will decrease. Decrease from what? From more people having insurance! They want some folks to be in dire straits so they can have cheaper health insurance, but any reasonable study shows that health care would cost less on single payer healthcare. (I don’t care how unpopular this view is on hacker news, I stand by it. I’m ashamed sometimes that this forum is so harshly capitalist and thrives on grinding poor humans into proverbial paste, because otherwise everyone here is pretty kind and supportive of each other.)
- pyuser583 3y agoStandards will almost certainly decrease, especially for people in top 60%. And possibly for everyone. The argument in favor is financial. But anyone with halfway decent medical coverage - tech workers, government employees, retirees, union workers, etc, it’s almost certainly going to go down. Part of the reason is that Americans do get pretty decent care when they can afford it. I can tell you personal horror stories about my time in Europe and ex-Europe. I’d say the real problem in America isn’t even payment - it’s how medical information is siloed and treated like proprietary data. Usually under the guise of patient privacy.
- rootusrootus 3y agoHa, do 60% of Americans even have private health insurance? Less than half get it through their employer, so that would mean more than 10% are just paying out of pocket through the exchanges?
- treyfitty 3y agoI know this article isn’t tech related, but it relates to employment in general. I’m torn between feeling sad that phenomenal people with rare abilities under terrible circumstances can’t get the most basic of care unless tied to an employer… on the other hand, I’m glad that there are organizations who care when they have 0 incentive to care. I pray to work for a company that cares this much about their people. I’d be willing to take a 50% salary cut simply because money is an ends to achieving happiness- if that company cared this much about people, I’m sure they’d do other small things that ultimately brings me happiness.
- giantg2 3y ago"I’m glad that there are organizations who care when they have 0 incentive to care." They have at least a little reason to care since sports are about popularity and being cold-heartedis not a recipe for popularity. I'd imagine they can also write off the cost as goodwill.
- throw10920 3y agoHN is not for either "tech" in general or "employment in general". From the guidelines[1]: > What to Submit > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. This submission is extremely off-topic and I've flagged it. Please don't submit stuff like this here - it degrades the quality of the site. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- LudwigNagasena 3y agoCan’t they just cover his health insurance without engaging in employment fraud?
- michaelbuckbee 3y agoIn the scope of these things, this is pretty above board.
- TylerE 3y agoHow is it fraud? How is this any different from “gardening leave”? They’re not even paying him.
- giantg2 3y agoIs it really employment fraud? It seems the contract and terms would be pretty clear. Generally you have to knowingly misrepresent a fact for something to be fraud. It seems this is all out in the open.
- alistairSH 3y agoHe is listed on the team's restricted list. So, it's completely legal. In MLB, the restricted list is a contract status where the player is still associated with the team but inactive (and the roster position is freed up to be filled). The player can be traded to another team, become active again, etc. This status can be used when a player has major legal or health issues (in this case, it's uncontrolled bipolar + schizophrenia).
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]