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Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

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Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#91

Post by filmgirlcw »

tomp wrote: post #83
filmgirlcw wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure — but the point is that it isn’t a viable discount for most people who are laid off — regardless of your income level. A decade ago, when I went off my parents insurance (and before the startup I worked at offered insurance), COBRA was $1200 a month — it was more than my rent at the time. But my medication costs were $1500 or $1600 a month (primarily for an ADHD drug that was still under patent and no generic wa…

Wow, sounds like you just discovered that health insurance is expensive! (Regardless of who pays it, your employer paying it is just a hidden reduction of your salary.)

That’s hardly something I “just” discovered. Practically every other first world country offers deeply subsidized or nationalized health care except the United States, and considering my 40% effective tax rate isn’t much lower than those places, I’d rather all citizens have access and not have to forego health insurance for food or rent.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#92

Post by perfectstorm »

Traster wrote: post #90
thaumasiotes wrote: post #72

Hey, this reminds me of the announcement a couple weeks ago that Amazon is hiring 100k warehouse staff. In China, companies responded to this shift in demand by having the online-retail/logistics companies (demand way up, not enough workers) contract with the physical-retail companies (demand way down, too many workers) for their workers' time. You'd still be a Macy's employee, but you'd be doing Amazon's work, and A…

I have a sneaking suspicion that it actually works in Amazon's favour for the employees to leave their previous employers. It means Amazon can pick the top performers, retain them after the emergency, cut the low performers once the emergency is over and in the mean time it completely screws up their competitors' work force management.

if this were to happen I'm sure Macy's lawyers are smart enough to have a non-hire clause for these employees for a year or so.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#93

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

cstejerean wrote: post #47
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

COBRA is so intractably expensive that the only responsible thing to do is assume COBRA doesn’t exist and base policies and assistance around that reality. Any analysis / estimate / policy that starts from any assumption of the existence or usage of COBRA is therefore so unrealistic and inaccurate as to be completely ignored.

That's because insurance is expensive. The price you pay for COBRA is identical to how much that policy cost while employed, except that while employed the employer is paying a large share of the cost, and while on COBRA you pay the full cost yourself. Spending some time on COBRA is a good way to appreciate the high cost of insurance. I spent 12 months on COBRA when I started my startup, and while I didn't enjoy payi…

I’m unclear the purpose of your comment. I never said insurance wasn’t expensive. Taking someone who has no choice but to base their life around not bearing that cost because they must rely on employers to bear it for them, then suddenly acting like it’s a benefit that they can optionally take on that cost their life has been fundamentally structured to not bear, is not a solution to anything.

Presumably the existence of COBRA is meant to assist people experiencing a hard time with health coverage. It does not achieve that purpose. If insurance itself is prohibitively expensive that mediating it through COBRA means people are unhelped by COBRA, then replace COBRA with something that pays the cost of the coverage. Take your pick of many options, but shifting the cost burden onto someone who was told to structurally depend on it being tied to employers is not a thing. It’s a non-thing that does not count as an assistance or benefit.

It’s like if you lost your job and suddenly now breathing oxygen costs an extra fee, but it’s OK because you can just pay the oxygen fee you were forced into letting your employer pay on your behalf.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#94

Post by RandallBrown »

dankoss wrote: post #62
Ididntdothis wrote: post #19

At least they can stay on their health insurance. It’s always mind boggling that in the US you will not just lose your job when you get laid off but also your health insurance. For a lot of people this is life threatening.

This is not strictly true. Health insurance has always been available for purchase by individuals, and the ACA expanded access to this by providing income-based subsidies. When you lose your job, you lose access to your employer's subsidy and risk pool. That doesn't change the fact that heath insurance and healthcare is expensive , it's just pointing out that the only way most people can afford to have it is because…

Depends on the state of course, but some (Washington at least in 2017) have totally free healthcare if you have no income.

It was extremely easy to sign up on the healthcare exchange. The coverage wasn't great, but it was free and better than nothing.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#95

Post by Ididntdothis »

MuffinFlavored wrote: post #88
synaesthesisx wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, it sure would be great if we could decouple health insurance from employment like other reasonable countries. It would be a shame to literally have your existence threatened by absurd factors well outside of your control (like your employer unable to meet payroll due to a global pandemic).

> it sure would be great if we could decouple health insurance from employment like other reasonable countries. How does this work in Denmark? I read they were the gold standard for how a nation should do health care, but I also read they don't do insurance solely as a public option through the government.

If it’s like Germany they have highly regulated insurance companies. There are public and private insurers. Private insurance is only available for higher incomes. The main thing in Germany is that your premium is based on a percentage of your salary so the less you make the less you pay. There is also a cutoff from a certain salary on so the premiums don’t keep going up when you make above that cutoff amount. If you are unemployed the employment agency keeps paying. If you are on welfare then that department will pay. So you can never fall out of insurance.

Another big aspect is that the amount doctors and hospitals can charge and what insurance reimburses is regulated. So you don’t have the situation where hospitals charge whatever they feel like and the insurance reimburses whatever they feel like and the patient sits in the middle and has to figure it out somehow or potentially go bankrupt.

There is much more detail but I hope I got the basics right. You hear a lot of bad stories too but overall the system is way more predictable and just than the US system. I have experienced both and I can see the US system only making sense for millionaires or healthy people. Otherwise it’s an insanely bureaucratic, expensive and merciless system where every hospital visit is a big gamble. And definitely don’t get any chronic disease or they will bleed yoU dry.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#96

Post by xster »

Ididntdothis wrote: post #54
xster wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

#yang2020

Did Yang run on health care reform? Last time I read about him he was babbling about “choice” and “market” but seemed to have no real plan other than the magic of the free market. If the health care situation doesn’t change then all of UBI will be eaten up by health care soon.

Ya, he ran specifically to decouple healthcare from employment. It's thematic with the whole financial security to pursue entrepreneurship part of the message (which doesn't work if you have to take all that money and buy health insurance for your employees)

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#97

Post by gregkerzhner »

jcranmer wrote: post #81
smartstakestime wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can buy your own health insurance. This is like saying that because you dont get free lunch anymore that losing your job is "life threatening". Somebody has to pay for it. This liberal mindset of "make rich guy pay" is at its core lazy and selfish. I think that the health industry itself is a scam, and over priced by bureaucracy but that doesnt mean that another person should take your burden. Your health is your…

If you get health insurance via your employer, the value of that health insurance is not considered income, and is tax-free. If you pay for it yourself, you get no tax benefits for doing so. That kind of skews incentives a fair amount.

This is not true (at least if you are a contractor or are self employed). You deduct your health insurance premiums (and all sorts of other expenses like home office) as business expenses. After that’s done you pay tax on the rest. source - I’ve been contracting for 6 years and buying my own insurance.

Re: Macy’s to Furlough 100k Employees

#98

Post by pjdemers »

dankoss wrote: post #62
Ididntdothis wrote: post #19

At least they can stay on their health insurance. It’s always mind boggling that in the US you will not just lose your job when you get laid off but also your health insurance. For a lot of people this is life threatening.

This is not strictly true. Health insurance has always been available for purchase by individuals, and the ACA expanded access to this by providing income-based subsidies. When you lose your job, you lose access to your employer's subsidy and risk pool. That doesn't change the fact that heath insurance and healthcare is expensive , it's just pointing out that the only way most people can afford to have it is because…

>> Health insurance has always been available for purchase by individuals Not true. Before Obamacare, anyone with a pre-existing condition was excluded. "Pre-existing condition" means you ever saw a doctor more than once for the same thing. My family was denied because one of my children was in the hospital for a week AT BIRTH. She was 5 when we applied, and not been sick for a day since then.
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