"The Baby Boon"
Posted by deegee
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"The Baby Boon" August 28, 2008 |
I suppose some of you have read this fine book by Elinor Burkett. The subtitle is "How Family-Friendly America Cheats the Childless".
I am nearly 50 pages into the book and it is a great read. I am amazed at the expense some companies will incur to cater to all the moos who work for them. I am just finishing the part about some exchanges between family-friendly (FF) folks and CF folks, some of them a little nasty, about how clueless the FF folks are about the privileges they have in the workplace and how the CF folks have to bear the costs or are unable to partake in any of the perks.
While my company is not nearly as nutty about the FF stuff (we don't have subsidized daycare, for example), the part about the health benefits hit home with me. If I may rant a little, here is my situation:
I switched from full-time work to part-time work back in 2001 after 16 years of FT work. I got burnt out but my 16 years of experience they did not want to lose. I did some telecommuting for 27 months before the bigwigs ended that (for everyone, on an open-ended basis). I still could work PT but had to haul myself to the office 3 days a week, a long and tiring (and expensive) commute. Last year, I asked them to switch me to 2 days a week (12 hours per week) and they let me do that. However, I had to forgo my health benefits (H
because I needed 20 hours per week to keep them. Here is where my dander gets raised.
I offered to pay 100% of the HB premiums instead of the 50% I was paying when I worked PT (and the 25% I paid when I worked FT). They said no. I wrote a letter to my department's head and to HR, telling them if I quit my job and married a coworker I could receive (subsidized) HB from the company even though I would NOT BE WORKING FOR THEM. They still said no, claiming that because we have some older folks in our field offices who work less than 20 hours a week, I would now be considered costly and "high-risk" because I (age 45) would be in their "class" for rating purposes (and those folks are not offered HB either).
I reminded them that besides the spouse, the children of covered employees also receive (subsidized) HB which costs the company a lot of $$. All I wanted was the CHANCE to pay 100 PERCENT of my HB premiums.
I am on COBRA now but that expires at the end of this year. With no real incentive to stay with the company, and with the 2-days-a-week commute still awful, and with lots of $$ saved (by being CF of course, and some good investments in the 1990s, and my company stock options), I am going to retire by the end of the year. And in my exit interview, when they ask me why I am leaving, I will tell them, "You gave me no incentive to stay........if you allowed me to buy into your HB, I might have put up with the bad commute a little longer......but you choose to pay out $$ for the spouse and children of covered employees instead of offering HB to everyone who actually WORKS for you......"
Okay, end of rant. Thank you for your patience.
I am nearly 50 pages into the book and it is a great read. I am amazed at the expense some companies will incur to cater to all the moos who work for them. I am just finishing the part about some exchanges between family-friendly (FF) folks and CF folks, some of them a little nasty, about how clueless the FF folks are about the privileges they have in the workplace and how the CF folks have to bear the costs or are unable to partake in any of the perks.
While my company is not nearly as nutty about the FF stuff (we don't have subsidized daycare, for example), the part about the health benefits hit home with me. If I may rant a little, here is my situation:
I switched from full-time work to part-time work back in 2001 after 16 years of FT work. I got burnt out but my 16 years of experience they did not want to lose. I did some telecommuting for 27 months before the bigwigs ended that (for everyone, on an open-ended basis). I still could work PT but had to haul myself to the office 3 days a week, a long and tiring (and expensive) commute. Last year, I asked them to switch me to 2 days a week (12 hours per week) and they let me do that. However, I had to forgo my health benefits (H
because I needed 20 hours per week to keep them. Here is where my dander gets raised.I offered to pay 100% of the HB premiums instead of the 50% I was paying when I worked PT (and the 25% I paid when I worked FT). They said no. I wrote a letter to my department's head and to HR, telling them if I quit my job and married a coworker I could receive (subsidized) HB from the company even though I would NOT BE WORKING FOR THEM. They still said no, claiming that because we have some older folks in our field offices who work less than 20 hours a week, I would now be considered costly and "high-risk" because I (age 45) would be in their "class" for rating purposes (and those folks are not offered HB either).
I reminded them that besides the spouse, the children of covered employees also receive (subsidized) HB which costs the company a lot of $$. All I wanted was the CHANCE to pay 100 PERCENT of my HB premiums.
I am on COBRA now but that expires at the end of this year. With no real incentive to stay with the company, and with the 2-days-a-week commute still awful, and with lots of $$ saved (by being CF of course, and some good investments in the 1990s, and my company stock options), I am going to retire by the end of the year. And in my exit interview, when they ask me why I am leaving, I will tell them, "You gave me no incentive to stay........if you allowed me to buy into your HB, I might have put up with the bad commute a little longer......but you choose to pay out $$ for the spouse and children of covered employees instead of offering HB to everyone who actually WORKS for you......"
Okay, end of rant. Thank you for your patience.
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Re: "The Baby Boon" August 28, 2008 |
Ditto|
Re: "The Baby Boon" August 28, 2008 |
WTEF (what-the-everloving-fuck)?? If ANYONE is "costly and high-risk" it's breeders! I don't fucking get the "thinking" here. Yes, older people tend to have more health problems. But I really fail to see how that compares with what breeders cost a health insurance plan. There's the constant doctor visits during the repugnancy, including ultrasounds and other tests; the labor and delivery hospitalization; then 18 years' of pediatrician visits. And that's for a NORMAL pregnasty. It just goes up from there.
As for the L&D, do NOT get me started on the luxurious "birthing suites" so many hospitals are putting in. They are like rooms in a fine hotel! Meanwhile, the really sick and dying people get shoved into cramped, institutional, rundown rooms that they get to SHARE.
Goddamn this pisses me off.
As for the L&D, do NOT get me started on the luxurious "birthing suites" so many hospitals are putting in. They are like rooms in a fine hotel! Meanwhile, the really sick and dying people get shoved into cramped, institutional, rundown rooms that they get to SHARE.
Goddamn this pisses me off.
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Re: "The Baby Boon" August 29, 2008 |
There is something very very wrong with a society that will allow elderly people to die from infected bedsores in understaffed state nursing homes, but that will GLADLY fork over 900k for a baybee who is born fucked up and has a slim chance of anything but ending up slumped over in a wheel chair, if that. If it's a CHLLLYYYDDD, then it's allowed to be carried to term when it's medically known during the pregnancy that it has a water bubble where it's brain is supposed to be, or no face, or two heads, 4 arms, two legs and one vagina, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST. This is brutally unfair to the rest of society, INCLUDING children who develop illnesses, suffer horrific injuries, need transplants, etc..........
There's all kind of controversy about letting these water head babies who generally die within a few hours or days, be organ donors. They generally have healthy bodies from the neck down and could save a LOT of lives. They WILL die, no doubt about it, and generally shortly after birth as they don't usually have a functioning brain stem. However, even though SOME PNB want to donate the kid's organs, there are all kinds of laws which deny them that right. So, in addition to that kid's certain death, his short life is a complete waste. ALL because of "right to lifers", so called. I wonder if they would have a change of heart if their pweshush baby was in the incubator next to the fucked up water head kid, but only needed a new heart to survive and live a "normal" life, and the bubble head kid was a match?
It's always... "different when it's your own", I suppose. It seems that the rules are always changing, but in the breeders' favors.
There's all kind of controversy about letting these water head babies who generally die within a few hours or days, be organ donors. They generally have healthy bodies from the neck down and could save a LOT of lives. They WILL die, no doubt about it, and generally shortly after birth as they don't usually have a functioning brain stem. However, even though SOME PNB want to donate the kid's organs, there are all kinds of laws which deny them that right. So, in addition to that kid's certain death, his short life is a complete waste. ALL because of "right to lifers", so called. I wonder if they would have a change of heart if their pweshush baby was in the incubator next to the fucked up water head kid, but only needed a new heart to survive and live a "normal" life, and the bubble head kid was a match?
It's always... "different when it's your own", I suppose. It seems that the rules are always changing, but in the breeders' favors.
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