Comment by fnordpiglet
10 hours ago
I’ve been in the industry a long time and benefits at FAANG are not great. Deductibles are high, subsidy pretty average, overall package weak. Earlier in my career I paid nothing for insurance, had a lot of fringe benefits, and I was genuinely grateful for the perks. I’ve looked at ACA alternatives compared to my FAANG benefits and it wasn’t a huge difference frankly - better on the margin but nothing to write home about, at least in my local market.
The fact people have to find a job not for money but for health insurance is about as dystopian as I can imagine. Toil just to not get sick and go broke, not because you need the money. What a sad world we built for ourselves.
> What a sad world we built for ourselves.
Sad country, just US. Rest of the western world works much better. But this is what US population wants, more direct money at all costs and praying all the time no nasty health surprise is around the corner. Otherwise you are a commie or worse. Higher education is exactly the same.
Given overall health of US population thats not a good bet and it only gets worse with age.
I think no one wants this personally, but there is so much money - and employment - behind the private pay system that it’s virtually impossible to reform it. There is also a real aspect that the system was designed by those in power to further a necessity to work, an overriding fear that people might idle or not work with maximum productivity. Once the system was laid down. With dozens of huge insurance companies and even more smaller ones, with billing departments, coding clerks, adjusters, claim processors, duplicated at every clinic, hospital, insurance company, and the constellation of other roles, partners, providers, it’s now employing millions of people just to operate this hideous machine of national suffering. Talk of reforming it into a single payer system or a socialized system is wildly unpopular with everyone who depends on the current system - millions upon millions of people, and deep spending companies supporting candidates. In a country where either politicians either win by a landslide due to partisan politics, in which case it doesn’t matter what constituents think, or the margins of victory are so narrow that you can’t afford to screw over millions and millions of people through direct action like legislation, the system is metastasizing. There are solutions to the health care problem from a consumer point of view, but the churn it would cause on the employment side would be profound and structural. My view is probably the best strategy is make money young here and emigrate to a place worth living, which is painful to say.
There’s very little I can see truly breaking American society but I think the stark stupidity of health care here is up on the top.
These systems seem unbeatable but thats just an illusion. Either market forces will make it so unattainable that people will simply revolt due to frequently dying from stuff thats curable in Haiti, some saner politician in style of Kennedy will come and make change (with very high risk of getting killed but that risk is there in all cases, see mr trump) or some other massive shock will happen. System in US is so twisted and unfair where 99% lose, sometimes in very life-destroying manners.
Shocks do come, nothing is static. One may end up bankrupt earlier than correction happens though. Vote with your feet if you want change earlier than it coming from the top.