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(As a brit) I don't understand this: "Molly was employed at the small NPO Knowbility as the Open Web Evangelist. Knowbility was able to put her on Family and M

by rtb 13y ago

(As a brit) I don't understand this: "Molly was employed at the small NPO Knowbility as the Open Web Evangelist. Knowbility was able to put her on Family and Medical Leave which allowed Molly to retain her health insurance coverage. The FMLA time period has ended and the only coverage available now is through COBRA." So she had health insurance, but now that she's ill and has to stop work, it is stopping? If health insurance doesn't help you when you are sick, when does it help you? Thank god (and the Labour party) for the NHS.

throwmeaway2525 13y ago
We don't understand it, either. The fund is growing--good to see that!
chrisrhoden 13y ago
The standard in the US is that this is a different type of insurance (disability insurance) and it's often sold in parallel with life insurance. Disability benefits can also (often) become available in this situation, meaning that this is one of the only situations in which the fed will actually give you money (most other benefits are paid out by the state). Not saying that this is a good situation, just clearing up some misconceptions.
- slowmover 13y ago
  Specifically, there are both short-term and long-term disability insurances. Both pay some percentage of your base pay (often 60%-80%, or even 100% for short-term) at the time of the qualifying event. Short-term kicks in first, but eventually runs out and the long-term insurance kicks in. Long-term insurance often covers the individual to retirement age. Take it from me, you really want to make sure you've got both, because shit happens.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  Noted spastic blabbermouth Jim Cramer makes a point of this in his books. He more or less calls disability insurance the most important financial product that people can buy.
waterlion 13y ago
I don't know which Labour party you're talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_Service_(England)#Blair_government_reforms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_...
- rtb 13y ago
  (The one before New Labour!)
- frobozz 13y ago
  The one that appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan
- masklinn 13y ago
  Attlee's Labour.
gadders 13y ago
Thank Thatcher we have a country that can afford to pay for the NHS.
- anu_gupta 13y ago
  Can we not turn this into some political shitfest please. Have some respect.
  - gadders 13y ago
    But..but... he started it. On a serious note, I wish Molly all the best.
    - rtb 13y ago
      (Sorry, that Labour aside does seem like a bit of a derail. I didn't intend it as such.)
- pessimizer 13y ago
  Because the economy that Thatcher and Blair made is going so well? Triple-dip?
  - gadders 13y ago
    I think we can blame Gordon Brown for this one.
carlob 13y ago
The thing that's really weird to me as an generic continental European is that there are bounds to medical leave, when an employee gets sick around here there is some sort of fund that kicks in and the person retains pay and benefits for as long as she's out of work. It's not just about universal healthcare it's also about not losing your salary if you are sick for a couple of months (or losing your holidays if you are sick for a couple of weeks).
ck2 13y ago
Isn't this country crazy? If you watch our politics (please spare yourself) you could have seen a packed convention center for one of our two major political parties a few years ago cheering the idea that we should let people get ill and die if they could not afford to treat themselves. This is not an exaggeration, I am sure it is on youtube somewhere. [1] Oh and serving in the military means your claim request will be backlogged for a year, so that doesn't mean you are safe either. [1] google "let him die"
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "cheering the idea that we should let people get ill and die if they could not afford to treat themselves" For an extra level of sadness, said candidates were simultaneously criticizing other countries for allegedly letting people die unnecessarily (see: "death panels").
noonespecial 13y ago
Part of the confusion is that "health insurance" isn't so much insurance any more but part payment gateway, part tax deduction system and part salary augmentation. It's better to say she lost her health care when she lost the ability to keep paying for it. The real insurance is called disability insurance now.
DanBC 13y ago
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/... > Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid. EDIT: Insurance is a scam and insurers are evil.
- phonon 13y ago
  Only if you use a very lax definition of "caused"...more like "possibly contributed to". See http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabeth-warren-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-utterly-misleading-bankruptcy-study/18826/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabet... and http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/considering-elizabeth-warren-the-scholar/60211/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/consider...
- oijaf888 13y ago
  How is insurance a scam? You are lowering the impact an extreme event has on you in return for the payment of monthly amount.
  - rtb 13y ago
    The scam is that they are skilled at not paying out when you need them.
    - xerophtye 13y ago
      That's because the system is setup so that the payouts go from a pool of money that would otherwise be "profit" for the company. If the company's "profit" is independent of the payouts, maybe this would help. Probably have a separate pool of the money from where to settle claims. You could split up the premium into two parts: 1) The money for the payout pool. No profit should be extracted from here. 2) Money that you will invest and thus earn profit from. You could use actuarial science to make sure that you have enough collections to statistically be able to pay out every claim. And in this model, the company would have no incentive to NOT payout
fit2rule 13y ago
Health Insurance isn't actually designed in the US to benefit the individual. Its defined to benefit those who sell health insurance. If you can't pay: you die. That is an axiom of the entire insurance industry.
- oijaf888 13y ago
  I stopped paying my health insurance once and I didn't die. Perhaps you mean if you don't pay for health insurance you are more likely to declare bankruptcy as a result of an unexpected healthcare issue however to equate declaring bankruptcy with death is a bit extreme imo.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    You're healthy, you don't have any life-critical problems at the moment. You don't need insurance. But when you do need it - if you have an accident, get cancer, or otherwise ill - and you don't have it: well, no medicine for you. Go die in the streets. And before you say this is an extreme position, no. I have worked with homeless and despondent people in America, on the streets, and time and again encountered people who simply didn't have the money for the treatment they needed, so they were on the streets. Dying of cancer. All over America.
fit2rule 13y ago
>Thank god (and the Labour party) for the NHS. On the one hand. On the other hand, it has created a nation-state currently in the death throws of a victim mentality.
drzaiusapelord 13y ago
The standard response is that she needed disability insurance on top of her medical insurance. So yeah, you need 2 different insurances in case you get a real illness in the US. This is how fucked up it is here. Unfortunately the GOP and conservative democrats killed any "public option" in the ACA so we'll never have anything like the NHS here. Oh, I have this secondary insurance. It also sucks and will cost me a lot of money to take care of myself if I ever get as sick as Molly. I might have a chance of not losing my house with this insurance. That's on top of student loans you're paying off and other things Europeans don't have to worry about, but according to HN libertarians its all "welfare nanny state statism" and somehow Ron and Rand Paul would fix everything if we could just make them dictators for life.
- VLM 13y ago
  "Unfortunately the GOP and conservative democrats killed any "public option" in the ACA so we'll never have anything like the NHS here." Hardly a permanent situation. When you have a corrupt enough system, just like a scrambled enough computer, the best bet is to hurry up and reboot the system so you can bring it up clean. After the reboot we'll have sensible insurance. The problem is surviving until after the reboot. There is too much money to be made by crooks so we have to nurse the existing system along until enough blood has been squeezed from stones.
  - drzaiusapelord 13y ago
    You're much more optimistic than me. I could see, maybe, my grandkids ushering in something like the NHS, but now or in the near future? Where the political discourse is split between being Eisenhower style Republicans (democrats) and some insane fascist theocracy (Republicans/Tea party)? Yeah, this not the formula for progressive politics.

by rtb 13y ago

throwmeaway2525 13y ago

We don't understand it, either. The fund is growing--good to see that!

chrisrhoden 13y ago

The standard in the US is that this is a different type of insurance (disability insurance) and it's often sold in parallel with life insurance. Disability benefits can also (often) become available in this situation, meaning that this is one of the only situations in which the fed will actually give you money (most other benefits are paid out by the state). Not saying that this is a good situation, just clearing up some misconceptions.

slowmover 13y ago
Specifically, there are both short-term and long-term disability insurances. Both pay some percentage of your base pay (often 60%-80%, or even 100% for short-term) at the time of the qualifying event. Short-term kicks in first, but eventually runs out and the long-term insurance kicks in. Long-term insurance often covers the individual to retirement age. Take it from me, you really want to make sure you've got both, because shit happens.
maxerickson 13y ago
Noted spastic blabbermouth Jim Cramer makes a point of this in his books. He more or less calls disability insurance the most important financial product that people can buy.

waterlion 13y ago

I don't know which Labour party you're talking about. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_Service_(England)#Blair_government_reforms http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_National_Health_...

rtb 13y ago
(The one before New Labour!)
frobozz 13y ago
The one that appointed Aneurin Bevan as Minister of Health. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aneurin_Bevan
masklinn 13y ago
Attlee's Labour.

gadders 13y ago

Thank Thatcher we have a country that can afford to pay for the NHS.

anu_gupta 13y ago
Can we not turn this into some political shitfest please. Have some respect.
- gadders 13y ago
  But..but... he started it. On a serious note, I wish Molly all the best.
  - rtb 13y ago
    (Sorry, that Labour aside does seem like a bit of a derail. I didn't intend it as such.)
pessimizer 13y ago
Because the economy that Thatcher and Blair made is going so well? Triple-dip?
- gadders 13y ago
  I think we can blame Gordon Brown for this one.

carlob 13y ago

The thing that's really weird to me as an generic continental European is that there are bounds to medical leave, when an employee gets sick around here there is some sort of fund that kicks in and the person retains pay and benefits for as long as she's out of work. It's not just about universal healthcare it's also about not losing your salary if you are sick for a couple of months (or losing your holidays if you are sick for a couple of weeks).

ck2 13y ago

Isn't this country crazy? If you watch our politics (please spare yourself) you could have seen a packed convention center for one of our two major political parties a few years ago cheering the idea that we should let people get ill and die if they could not afford to treat themselves. This is not an exaggeration, I am sure it is on youtube somewhere. [1] Oh and serving in the military means your claim request will be backlogged for a year, so that doesn't mean you are safe either. [1] google "let him die"

potatolicious 13y ago
> "cheering the idea that we should let people get ill and die if they could not afford to treat themselves" For an extra level of sadness, said candidates were simultaneously criticizing other countries for allegedly letting people die unnecessarily (see: "death panels").

noonespecial 13y ago

Part of the confusion is that "health insurance" isn't so much insurance any more but part payment gateway, part tax deduction system and part salary augmentation. It's better to say she lost her health care when she lost the ability to keep paying for it. The real insurance is called disability insurance now.

DanBC 13y ago

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db2009064_666715.htm http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/... > Medical problems caused 62% of all personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2007, according to a study by Harvard researchers. And in a finding that surprised even the researchers, 78% of those filers had medical insurance at the start of their illness, including 60.3% who had private coverage, not Medicare or Medicaid. EDIT: Insurance is a scam and insurers are evil.

phonon 13y ago
Only if you use a very lax definition of "caused"...more like "possibly contributed to". See http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabeth-warren-and-the-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-utterly-misleading-bankruptcy-study/18826/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2009/06/elizabet... and http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/considering-elizabeth-warren-the-scholar/60211/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/07/consider...
oijaf888 13y ago
How is insurance a scam? You are lowering the impact an extreme event has on you in return for the payment of monthly amount.
- rtb 13y ago
  The scam is that they are skilled at not paying out when you need them.
  - xerophtye 13y ago
    That's because the system is setup so that the payouts go from a pool of money that would otherwise be "profit" for the company. If the company's "profit" is independent of the payouts, maybe this would help. Probably have a separate pool of the money from where to settle claims. You could split up the premium into two parts: 1) The money for the payout pool. No profit should be extracted from here. 2) Money that you will invest and thus earn profit from. You could use actuarial science to make sure that you have enough collections to statistically be able to pay out every claim. And in this model, the company would have no incentive to NOT payout

fit2rule 13y ago

Health Insurance isn't actually designed in the US to benefit the individual. Its defined to benefit those who sell health insurance. If you can't pay: you die. That is an axiom of the entire insurance industry.

oijaf888 13y ago
I stopped paying my health insurance once and I didn't die. Perhaps you mean if you don't pay for health insurance you are more likely to declare bankruptcy as a result of an unexpected healthcare issue however to equate declaring bankruptcy with death is a bit extreme imo.
- fit2rule 13y ago
  You're healthy, you don't have any life-critical problems at the moment. You don't need insurance. But when you do need it - if you have an accident, get cancer, or otherwise ill - and you don't have it: well, no medicine for you. Go die in the streets. And before you say this is an extreme position, no. I have worked with homeless and despondent people in America, on the streets, and time and again encountered people who simply didn't have the money for the treatment they needed, so they were on the streets. Dying of cancer. All over America.

fit2rule 13y ago

>Thank god (and the Labour party) for the NHS. On the one hand. On the other hand, it has created a nation-state currently in the death throws of a victim mentality.

drzaiusapelord 13y ago

The standard response is that she needed disability insurance on top of her medical insurance. So yeah, you need 2 different insurances in case you get a real illness in the US. This is how fucked up it is here. Unfortunately the GOP and conservative democrats killed any "public option" in the ACA so we'll never have anything like the NHS here. Oh, I have this secondary insurance. It also sucks and will cost me a lot of money to take care of myself if I ever get as sick as Molly. I might have a chance of not losing my house with this insurance. That's on top of student loans you're paying off and other things Europeans don't have to worry about, but according to HN libertarians its all "welfare nanny state statism" and somehow Ron and Rand Paul would fix everything if we could just make them dictators for life.

VLM 13y ago
"Unfortunately the GOP and conservative democrats killed any "public option" in the ACA so we'll never have anything like the NHS here." Hardly a permanent situation. When you have a corrupt enough system, just like a scrambled enough computer, the best bet is to hurry up and reboot the system so you can bring it up clean. After the reboot we'll have sensible insurance. The problem is surviving until after the reboot. There is too much money to be made by crooks so we have to nurse the existing system along until enough blood has been squeezed from stones.
- drzaiusapelord 13y ago
  You're much more optimistic than me. I could see, maybe, my grandkids ushering in something like the NHS, but now or in the near future? Where the political discourse is split between being Eisenhower style Republicans (democrats) and some insane fascist theocracy (Republicans/Tea party)? Yeah, this not the formula for progressive politics.