Archives for January 2016 | Working Stiffed

Obamacare Has Sentenced Me to Death

Yes, it’s true. Obamacare has sentenced me to death…and financial destitution. I feel it’s important to address this issue on this, the last day we are told to register for Obamacare without incurring an unconstitutional tax penalty.

I have been without health insurance, which I cannot afford, for a year-and-a-half and I live in a state that does not extend Medicaid to people in my position. As a result, I am one serious disease or accident away from certain death.

After dutifully paying taxes for close to 40 years, helping to send other people’s kids to school (I don’t have kids) and funding food stamps and benefits for thousands of people, my government is repaying me by turning its back on me during my hour of need…and penalizing me for my new-found destitution, to boot.

How did this happen? I am a 52-year-old woman who was last employed in a full-time position with benefits four years ago; I was part of a group purge after my company was acquired by a competitor. This scenario is familiar to most of you, I’m sure. I thought I’d find another job with benefits easily, but I was wrong.

As The New York Times recently reported, women over 50 account for half of all long-term unemployed people. After remaining steadily employed in good, white collar lower management positions for more than 30 years, I was suddenly an unwilling participant in the trendy new gig economy out of necessity.

For this I owe a big thanks to Bill Clinton and NAFTA, which destroyed the American middle class by allowing companies to ship jobs overseas and import H1-B visa “guest workers.” Now, many of us find that we’re unemployable more than 20 years before we can collect a pension (if we even have one) or Social Security (if it will still exist by then).

My new reality involves going months without work, or “contracts,” and even when I do get a temporary contract position, my “clients” periodically cut my hours without warning. As a result, I made less than $10k last year.

Needless to say, I can’t afford the so-called affordable insurance Obama promised. According to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health care exchange marketplace, I’d need to pay $550 a month for a policy with an $8,000 deductible. And what good is a subsidy when you go months without any income?

A low-cost, pre-Obamacare catastrophic insurance policy would be helpful right about now. Unfortunately, Obamacare-less forces me to buy an overpriced policy with a high deductible, so that I can share the privilege of paying for some dude’s Viagra prescription and pediatric dental insurance (like I said, I don’t have kids).

To make things worse, I’m about to get hit with the Obamacare penalty…and this is on top having to drain my savings and take hardship withdrawals from my 401(k) (which I am also about to be unfairly penalized for) just to survive in our “new normal” transient, gig economy that mainstream media finds so hip and trendy.

I’ve decided that if something happens to me health-wise, I’m just going to die, because if I am hospitalized, I stand to lose my home and what little I have left, so why bother sticking around?

If you like Obamacare, it’s probably because you don’t need it

I am so tired of brainwashed Obamacare defenders crowing about the 12 million Americans who couldn’t get insurance before now having coverage. Frankly, in a country of 330 million people where close to 100 million are out of the workforce (many not by choice), that’s a drop in the uninsured bucket, so bragging is totally uncalled for. Maybe they’re promoting this “success” because they know that math-challenged Common Core students are easily impressed by any number you throw at them.

Obamacare supporters are also quick to blame states that don’t extend Medicaid. Why? Should citizens of states that aren’t on board with Obamacare be penalized? There wasn’t a Medicaid referendum in any state that I am aware of.

And, if Obamacare is supposed to mandate affordable insurance for all, why didn’t it nationalize Medicaid? At the very least, it should exempt those of us who live in Medicaid-deprived states from Obamacare.

And then there’s the pre-existing condition clause. Sorry, Obamacare defenders, but I’m not down with being stuck with the rest of this ugly baby just for that one benefit. Besides, a single-payer health care solution would take care of pre-existing conditions just as effectively. As it stands, the insurance companies are offsetting their pre-existing condition “losses” with double-digit rate increases each year.

Not surprisingly, I find that the strongest supporters of this crony capitalist screw job are people who have employer-paid health insurance or at least make or have enough money to overpay for their insurance.

I know a couple of people who used to sing the praises of Obamacare….until they lost their jobs, were forced to join the gig economy, and had to actually rely on Obamacare for coverage. Needless to say, both have now joined the repeal Obamacare bandwagon.

It’s unconstitutional

The lie Obama sold us (among many) when he was promoting this travesty was access and affordability…and, of course, we couldn’t keep our doctors, after all (not that we can afford them now anyway, so I suppose this is a moot point for those of us who inhabit the Obamacare penal colony). I admit that I bought the spin. I even voted for the lying clown. What we got instead was a gun to our heads forcing us to purchase an overpriced product from PRIVATE companies or face hefty, escalating tax penalties.

No income limits were set; whether you make $10k (or less) or $100k a year, if you don’t buy insurance, you get taxed. Seriously? How is that legal? Or fair? First of all, people who make less than $30k shouldn’t pay ANY taxes, never mind have tax penalties imposed upon them.

And if Obama was so hell-bent on insuring us, why didn’t he mandate maximum premium amounts that insurers could charge? Say, $200 a month? Let’s call Obamacare what it is: a blank corporate welfare check to the insurance companies.

Not a peep from presidential candidates

NOT ONE presidential candidate has addressed this travesty. Several running for president are sitting members of Congress. They’ve taken a two year paid vacation on our tax payer dime to attend fundraisers and campaign for an office most don’t stand a chance of winning. Must be nice.

NOT ONE of them (including our socialist man of the people, Bernie Sanders) can be bothered to spare a moment to introduce legislation NOW to at least waive the “Cadillac tax” penalty. No, instead of nuking the toxic provisions of Obamacare, Congressional members voted to repeal the whole thing, knowing that the president would veto the resolution….pure theater…or political masturbation.

As a member of Congress you have a unique opportunity to demonstrate your leadership abilities through legislation, and there’s no time like the present. That’s probably the ONLY advantage you have over Donald Trump. Talk is cheap. So, why not lead by example? Because, frankly, too many of us don’t have a year to wait for action…nor do we trust empty campaign promises.

Speaking of leading by example, I invite Obamacare defenders to show me how great it is by contributing funds to pay my Obamacare tax penalty and/or my monthly insurance premiums. On second thought, the way our economy is going, maybe you should hang on to your money…you’ll probably need it to pay for your own “affordable” Obamacare insurance someday.

It’s become obvious to me that the mission statement of most mid- or large-sized companies in the U.S. is : “Know the price of everything and the value of nothing.” How else to explain the epidemic of underemployed and unemployed people over 40?

A Business Journal contributing writer recently explained why companies don’t want to hire people over 40. Below are the reasons he was given by people who hire:

If they hire an experienced, mature worker at a salary that is clearly below what he/she should earn (should being the operative word here) they’ll be gone as soon as something better comes along

Working Stiffed response: So…pay them what they should earn…duh! How much money do companies lose because of the sometimes expensive mistakes made be less experienced, “cheaper” employees? Besides, wouldn’t it make more sense to have a few mature, experienced workers around who can mentor younger talent?

For that matter, what should companies expect if they underpay anyone, young or old? Do they think people will stick around for the pleasure of their manager’s company or to admire how effectively the CEO spends all the money he/she gets to keep by underpaying their employees??? Good luck with that.

If an experienced, mature worker accepts a lower salary than he/she should be earning (should…there’s that word again) there’s probably something wrong with him/her

Working Stiffed response: There is something wrong with unemployed mature workers; they are out of work for no good reason. I’d argue that there is really something wrong with short-nearsighted hiring managers and business owners who leave valuable talent at the interview table because of greed and ageism.

Job candidates over 40 who don’t get the job may sue for age discrimination

Working Stiffed response: And they should, if that is the only reason they are not being considered for the job, but the reality is they probably won’t sue you. In an environment where unions are routinely demonized and destroyed, few workers expect to find a sympathetic ear in the courts (and recent regulations have only reinforced employer-favored outcomes).

Besides, such an action would dash any hope of finding work, and finding a job when you’re over 40 is hard enough without having a failed age discrimination lawsuit to contend with during interviews.

Companies want someone who will stay for a while, and someone over 40 might retire sooner than they want

Working Stiffed response: As best as I can tell, most companies don’t want people to stick around, unless they’re young, cheap and don’t screw up too much. If a business is sincerely looking for long-term employees, they should prefer generation-Xers and baby boomers; they are more inclined to stick around and work hard, if they can land a decent job where they are appreciated.

Most millennials will tell you that they are not obsessed with money and they also don’t want to spend up to 80 hours a week trapped in an office. Thanks to all the zombie, vampire and doomsday scenario entertainment they grew up with, many are focused on having as many invigorating life experiences as they can before the zombie apocalypse, so good luck with your youth-focused succession planning, Mr. or Ms. Hiring Manager.

Besides, who can afford to retire these days? I swear I saw a former VP I worked with bagging groceries at Publix the other day.

Workers over 40 are too set in their ways

Working Stiffed response: Not necessarily; we’re just used to doing things the right way. What some people call “set in their ways” others call avoiding mistakes learned through trial and error. But don’t worry; we have the maturity to sit on the sidelines and let the young guns try out “awesome” out-of-the-box ideas, even if we know these sparks of innovation will turn into a waste of time and money.

The value of workers over 40

I’m sure the writer of the Business Article meant well; after all he was trying to sell the virtues of hiring mature employees. Unfortunately, the emphasis of the article was to inform companies that they have an opportunity to benefit from hiring experienced older workers at any crap salary they choose by exploiting the fact that many are now broke and desperate after being forced out of the workforce. It’s hard to appreciate such support when your alleged sole virtue is that you’re a bargain who should be fished out of the clearance bin.

Instead of focusing on the reasons to avoid hiring experienced workers, let’s look at the benefits of hiring qualified people over 40 (and, no, saving money by underpaying them isn’t a sound strategy):

If you pay us what we’re worth, we will likely MORE than earn our salary

We’ve already learned from our mistakes, so we won’t make them on your dime. Plus, we can hit the ground running and we’re more likely to have the emotional maturity needed to build relationships with stakeholders and to work well with others (that go-getter ego a lot of young managers have often works against getting the job done efficiently or effectively).

If you hire us at a salary worthy of our experience, you’re also likely to get a hard worker who is less likely to jump to another opportunity

Young people know that the only way they are going boost their pay is by jumping to other companies. And if they’re valued at one company, the odds are they’ll be appealing to another company…maybe even a competitor.

A mature employee is more likely to keep their wisdom and hard work ethic around longer, especially if they are paid what they are worth and are appreciated, because they know their job jumping days are behind them.

You need experienced workers to mentor your young talent

When I entered the white collar workforce after graduating from college, I had the benefit of working in a fully staffed department (back before “economies of scale” shrunk every operation to the bone). I learned a lot from my older, experienced coworkers. I don’t think I would have become as skilled in my field without their guidance.

If you have several employees, it’s a good idea to have at least one seasoned veteran to show them the ropes. And if you have limited resources for staffing, you probably don’t have the budget for costly trial and error, so if it comes down to hiring young and cheap or shelling out a little more for an experienced over 40 worker, you’re better off erring on the side of experience.

You get what you pay for

The last year I was employed as a full-time marketing manager, I generated more than 30 times my salary in revenue for my company. When I lost my position after my company was acquired by a competitor, my job was eliminated in favor of the acquiring company’s young, inexperienced manager.

Because she had little hands-on experience, in the year following my departure, she spent more than four times her salary on outside firms and consultants (which I never needed to do); and not only could she not replicate the success I achieved during my tenure with the company, but she allowed the leads and momentum I was building to evaporate.

In the four years since my departure, several former colleagues told me that the company’s marketing efforts are failing miserably, even as they keep adding more young marketing executives.

So, to all the hiring managers and business owners out there, I say keep hiring (and underpaying) inexperienced talent at your own risk. Sure, youthful innovation has it’s place, but so does experience. And the money you save in salary now may end up costing you your job or hurting your business tomorrow.

If you went back in time 20 or more years ago and told the people back then that in the near future employers would force them to take a blood test or they would lose their health insurance coverage, I’m sure they’d laugh and assume you were citing some obscure subplot from Orwell’s 1984.

You see, not too long ago, if such a widespread policy was proposed, people would have been outraged and protests would have broken out nationwide to put an end to such a blatant invasion of privacy.

Not so in 21^st century America. It looks like all the GMOs we eat, the fluoride in our water and the toxic mercury- and formaldehyde-laced vaccines we take willingly (or not so willingly, if you live in California) has left us brain damaged and semi-comatose.

We know our smartphones and TVs have taken a chunk out of our IQs, which may explain why 10 percent of college grads now believe that Judge Judy is a Supreme Court justice and some Americans think that Martin Luther King was the first black man on the moon. How else can we explain this epidemic of apathy and ignorance when it comes to our rights and freedoms?

We should have known we were in trouble when poor Edward Snowden hung his life out on the line to warn us about the criminal intrusiveness of our government only to have many Americans just shrug and say, “So what? I’ve got nothing to hide.” Hell, these pod people even parroted the government propaganda that he was a traitor.

I’m sure Snowden was even more shocked by our zombie-like reaction to our government’s widespread violation of the Fourth Amendment than he was when he discovered the extent of U.S. government surveillance. He obviously overestimated our present capacity for outrage and action.

So it should come as no surprise that corporate America wants to get in on the invasive fun. And why not? With health insurance premiums skyrocketing, it was only a matter of time before they would exploit our complacent idiocy by persuading employees to willingly submit to biometric screenings that measure blood pressure, weight, waist size, body mass index (BMI), cholesterol levels and other health vitals, or risk paying health coverage surcharges (as smokers already do) or losing coverage altogether.

So what if these wellness programs violate Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) laws or the protected health information (PHI) provisions of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)? You’ve got nothing to hide, right? And, gee, what’s wrong with getting healthy and getting a discount on your employer health insurance coverage?

The Gift of Obamacare: Making Private Health Information Public

As if the Patient Protection and “Affordable” Care Act (ACA) wasn’t bad (and unconstitutional) enough by forcing you to buy health insurance from a private company under threat of tax penalties (?), we can also blame Obamacare for the explosion of invasive employee wellness screenings.

Surprised? Don’t be. After all, the ACA was written by the insurance companies and Jonathan Gruber, an arrogant, elitist jerk from MIT who laughed and admitted that the stupidity of American voters made this mess possible.

One would have thought that the Gruber fiasco would have been enough to inspire public outrage and force a repeal of Obamacare…but, again, you’d be overestimating the pod people who have body-snatched millions of once spirited, freedom-loving Americans.

The ACA helped advance the notion that healthy lifestyles would control health care costs; what seemed like harmless, even positive, rhetoric at the time has now been exposed as just another privacy-invading, money-making venture. It’s always about taking your money and invading your privacy with these clowns.

Anyone who has had a screening or physical in recent years knows that these examinations are designed to do one thing and one thing only…to make you a lifelong dependent on some hideously overpriced pharmaceutical drug that has 29 potentially lethal side effects (and the more drugs they can prescribe, safely or not, the better).

In 2014, 95 percent of employers had a health risk assessment, biometric screening or some type of wellness screening program in place, and 74 percent of the programs dangled an incentive carrot to get employees to participate (comply) usually a modest discount in health plan premiums.

Such high adoption rates by employers mean that these programs will now likely determine the course of your career. Good luck climbing the corporate ladder after your boss learns that you’re on an anti-psychotic and three blood pressure medications.

It’s Voluntary…Until it’s Not

Even if your company’s wellness plan is voluntary now, don’t be fooled. That’s how it always starts. Like a lot companies, Flambeau, a Wisconsin-based plastic maker, introduced their “voluntary” wellness program as a way to lower their health care costs and cut down on employee sick days.

But since wellness programs need high participation rates in order to get the best bang for the corporate buck, when participation rates are low, some companies are motivated to take off the kid gloves and make it a requirement for keeping insurance coverage. That’s what Flambeu did, and one employee who refused to participate in Flambeau’s program filed a complaint with the EEOC.

The Flambeu lawsuit is one of several such cases working their way through the legal system these days. The EEOC’s main argument in the Flambeu suit, and others like it, is that forcing employees to participate in wellness programs, especially when they involve biometic screening or health assessments, violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA prohibits companies from obtaining personal health information from employees or requiring that they submit to a medical exam. End of story, right?

Not so fast. For some reason, the U.S. District Court in Wisconsin didn’t see it that way. They ruled that data collected through wellness programs doesn’t violate the ADA. The EEOC is reviewing the decision, whatever that means.

Biometric Gene-ings and GINA

While the EEOC is leveraging ADA protections in its wellness program lawsuits, it’s also citing the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA), as it did in its suit on behalf of employees of Honeywell. Under GINA, employers are prohibited from requesting genetic information from employees, especially when that information is tied to health insurance coverage.

Honeywell employees turned to the EEOC after they balked at participating in the company’s wellness program and were slapped with a fat insurance premium surcharge. Employee spouses weren’t spared either; they were hit with a $1,000 tobacco surcharge for not coughing up their DNA, whether they smoked or not (guilty until proving innocent?).

Smokers know a thing or two about health insurance tyranny. Our poor, nicotine-addicted social pariah friends are always convenient canaries in the coal mine when it comes to test driving civil rights violations.

The EEOC cited both the ADA and GINA in the Honeywell case. And while the Minnesota District Court denied the EEOC’s request to issue a temporary restraining order against Honeywell’s wellness program, in its decision, the court expressed some concern as to how the ACA wellness directive would jibe with the ADA, GINA and other privacy laws. Ya think?

The courts are all over the place in these decisions (lower courts have handed out victories to both sides) and it’s hard to say when, or if, definitive judicial determination will ever emerge.

Employee Wellness Programs Can Hurt Your Credit Rating?

Another consideration: you may have noticed that your company hired an outside company to administer their wellness program. In addition to worrying that your boss will learn that you have high blood pressure, should you also be concerned that your info will be sold to a credit monitoring company or third-party marketer…and that your screening could affect your ability to get a car loan or mortgage in the future?

As it turns out, yes, you should be concerned, because wellness program vendors are not bound by HIPAA privacy protections.

If you read the fine print in their terms & conditions, you’ll find that many of these contractors have policies that allow them to share “identifiable data” with unidentified third parties “working to improve employee health.” Also, “de-identified” group health results are regularly shared with employers and researchers, and it’s been proven that this data can easily by “re-identified” and used for credit screening, marketing…or even… job displacement?

Think that Fitbit or other wearable fitness device makes you look cool? It turns out it also makes data mining your vitals that much easier. Nice, huh?

Health Care Employees VOLUNTEER their Protected Health Information

As an uninsured, underemployed freelancer, wellness programs didn’t ping my radar until recently when my client, a prestigious regional health care system, needed me to craft some employee communications regarding their wellness program.

The last time I was a full-time, salaried employee, employee wellness programs were strictly voluntary, so I didn’t give it a second thought. I quickly learned how much the ACA changed things.

Having worked in health care in some capacity for nearly two decades, I couldn’t believe that hospital personnel would agree to this madness. After all, these people would be terminated immediately if they violated a patient’s private health information, so why would they surrender their own private information? Shockingly, I learned many did just that.

I’m sure many workers realize this is a violation of their privacy, but they’re scared that if they don’t participate, they’ll end up on some undesirable human resources list (unfortunately, they’re probably right).

Others, who see themselves as being fit and healthy, may comply because they feel that they…wait for it… have nothing to hide. Good for them, but what if someone has a condition that they have a right to hide from the world?

What if you’re bipolar or diabetic, for example? Or, what if you have either condition, but don’t know it yet? Would you feel comfortable having your boss find out at the same time that you do? And how confident are you that you’d survive the next mass layoff if your biometric screening places you outside “normal” health levels in one or more categories? After all, there’s no way to prove that your condition would have had anything to do with your termination.

Don’t think for one minute that today’s corporate tightwads won’t weigh your health status when deciding if they want, or need, to part company with you, especially if they know that your fat medical bills will go with you.

Unfortunately, these days, the government and large employers don’t have to try too hard to push us toward controlled serfdom; they’ve handed us the shovel and we’re digging our way there ourselves, thank you. The powers that be have no need to fear torch and pitchfork mobs in the U.S. anymore.

No, the freeze-dried American zombie masses are content to drink beer, obsess over football and reality TV (our modern day bread and circuses) and to silently go along to get along. I guess as long as we have “nothing to hide” and Judge Judy is sitting on the Supreme Court, we have nothing to worry about.

Month: January 2016

Overqualified and Over 40: You Don’t Get What You Don’t Pay For

Employee Wellness Program Privacy: Biometric Screening Tyranny