I found my health insurance enrollment notice from years ago, is $51/month a good deal?
During the last few years my employer has been billing us $750/month. They stopped providing printed payroll information some years ago, I hadn’t noticed how high their insurance costs have become until I completed my income tax return.
We currently have OVER 400k open manufacturing jobs here in the US. They can’t find workers.
Biden signed the Chip act
to bring chip manufacturing jobs back to the US. Big question is to ask Intel, AMD, TI as to WHY they off-shored that manufacturing in the first place.
As for programmers - since it’s NOT a physical product and software development can be done ANYWHERE - companies are going where it’s cheaper. Companies like Oracle, Microsoft, GE, Amazon, Walmart, IBM etc all have large software campuses in places like India, Vietnam, and China. It’s IMPOSSIBLE for an American software developer to compete directly with them. They have good engineers and their pay is many places less then 1/3rd of an American Software developer. Home Depot pays more. The only saving grace for developers in the US is that the market has expanded.
One major problem with that study is that it’s NOT the same survivor rate across ALL the states. Where as in Canada it’s pretty much the same rates no matter where you live. Don’t get Cancer in Kentucky or Mississippi or Alabama. Survivor rates in Mississippi are 40% higher than Utah. I like being close to Boston with some of the best hospitals and doctors in the world.
+1
Similarly, job prospects for US Paralegals are greatly diminished from years ago. Large US law firms and other corporations frequently farm-out their Paralegal work to The Philippines, where that work is done–overnight–by actual attorneys who are fluent in English, and who are well-educated regarding the US legal system. And, because of the vast differences in the economies, the PH attorneys work for less than a US Paralegal would be paid.
Because of the 12 hour time difference between… let’s say… Manila & NYC, source documents can be sent to attorneys in The Philippines at the end of the US workday, and–voila–the finished product is emailed to the US by the beginning of the next workday.
I was just focusing on ONE field. Many companies are outsourcing the HR department to other companies. And many of these companies are in places like India.
X-Ray machines now take a digital image which can be digitally sent anywhere in the world. Get an X-Ray in almost any large hospital in the US and the image is sent to a doctor in India or even China to read/diagnose at 1/5th the cost.
Large accounting firms send their clients tax returns to places like India to process.
There’s a lot of behind the scenes outsourcing that most of the public has no idea.
Here in NH we outsource our Unemployment Call center to India.
Yup!
A couple of years ago, I had a Cranial CT scan performed because of a cluster of Brain Tumor diagnoses at my former workplace. The CT scan was performed in NJ, but the images were examined and the diagnosis (negative, thankfully!) was provided by a Radiologist in Georgia, because MDs in The Peach State charge less than Radiologists in The Garden State.
Unfortunately the concept notes were written on the back of the client list.
My mom had a heart attack on a cruise ship. They docked in Boston and she had bypass surgery - greatly complicated by her smoking - in Boston (I forget the hospital). The surgeon had encountered the condition twice before but it took 8 hours to successfully complete. I can’t say enough good things about the hospital… or the doc!
Probably Boston General. They are ranked the #1 hospital in the US. People all over the world fly into Boston for surgeries.
Yup!
If someone wants the most expert healthcare/surgery, he/she will get themselves to Boston General, or Johns Hopkins, or the Mayo Clinic.
I had to look it up, it was 20 years ago. It was the New England Medical Center right next to Chinatown.
It’s nowhere near Chinatown. But 20 years ago Chinatown was bigger. Maybe back then. Now - Chinatown is about 2 blocks long. Tufts is right near Chinatown.
Where I work we have operations in several Canadian provinces. Many employees buy their own insurance. While most everything is covered by the universal health plans, you might be dead before you get that CT scan your doctor ordered for example. If you have private insurance they walk you in almost immediately…
I would think that a few wrongful death lawsuits would improve their performance over time.
Try suing the government and let me know how that turns out.
My wife did that on behalf of a client and obtained a solid recovery.
in Canada? With government supplied universal healthcare? We’re not talking about the care provider delaying treatment, we’re talking about the government body approving the treatment plan and activities thereafter…The care provider is ready and willing. All they need is proof of payment prior to service…
+1
While it’s not necessarily easy to win a lawsuit against the federal gov’t, it can be done and there are–literally–thousands of cases where the plaintiffs succeeded. One of the most prominent cases had to do with the contamination of the water supply at Camp Lejeune.
The plaintiffs won, and their individual payouts ranged from $10k to over $1 million, depending on the severity of their medical conditions that resulted from the contaminated water supply.
When I was on active duty, dependents could sue for malpractice and some did win. Active duty cannot sue.
That was quite a few years ago. How they operate now, I do not know. But I do know Champus/Tricare was pretty bad, no providers where I live accepted it, I had to pay, then submit for reimbursement, worked out to Tricare paying about 25% of my out patient bills.
I agree, negligence absolutely. I was just addressing the fact that care can be slow to come by using the government provided insurance. They can take a long time to approve and then you may also be behind the people already approved and/or insurance that pays the caregiver more. Winning a lawsuit based on slow service may be rather difficult to do, especially if they are following their process.
Pretty lousy deal to have to pay out of pocket and then submit for reimbursement. I’ve had to do that a few times and it always resulted in the full price bill. If it goes through my insurance, they have a deal regarding UCR charges and without exception, the requested amount is adjusted downward to the plan price insurance says is UCR. Then I pay a deductible and/or fraction of the total, usually less than 25%. Quite the fleecing operation they have running…
