Obamacare: Businesses get extension, individuals don't
- Thread starter strawman
- Start date
Chick-fil-a doesn't, and their service shows.
Can you explain the ways they treated you badly? I did a newspaper route, then bagged groceries and pushed carts at the local supermarket, then worked on an assembly line, but none of those experiences were negative for me. Only one of them was enjoyable and positive, but never felt what you might be describing. I chose not to work at any fast food places because I like fast food, and at the time believed that if I worked any one of them and saw "how the sausage was made" so to speak, I'd have a hard time enjoying the food afterwards.
What was it about working for them that was so negative?
GasBandit
Staff member
... which they wouldn't have to do if not for Obamacare in the first place.
Actually, the fact they have been doing that shows that business had no idea they'd be getting an extension, which means the only possible explanation for Obama moving back the deadline is to shield Democrats up for re-election in 2014 from this horrible travesty of a job-killing, economy murdering bill.
I was not allowed to take any days off, or I would be fired. I was forced to work over 8 hour days, or I would be fired. I was called in to work on my days off, or I would be fired. I was told I would need to give at least 2 weeks notice of scheduling needs and even when I did, I was scheduled to work on days when I needed time off. I was forced to work with an injured hand (slipped into a deep fat fryer when it was on), or I would be fired (which is actually the day I quit).[DOUBLEPOST=1373397167][/DOUBLEPOST]
And if they provided their employees with heath care in the first place, Obamacare wouldn't even exist. This is a circular argument.
GasBandit
Staff member
And if semen were flammable jerkoffs would power our nation.
Health insurance costs money. Not every job that exists merits that level of compensation. Health insurance is not a right, and the purpose of employing someone is not to find an excuse to give them health insurance. As illustrated, the fiscal reality was that if the provision of health insurance was a requirement, those jobs would not have existed in the first place. So, going from employed with no health insurance to unemployed with no health insurance AND in violation of the law requiring you to have health insurance... this is the solution provided by the health care act.
That is pretty terrible, sounds like they were, if not outright breaking the law, at least skirting along it. I know if I ran into that I'd be talking with the state's attorney general, particularly for the injury incident. If you were a teen at the time then they definitely broke a number of child labor laws as well.
Are the conditions the same today? It sounds like it's possible that it could have been one terrible manager's or owner's bad management, rather than industry standard conditions, but having never been on the other side of the counter I don't know.
Those are terrible working conditions.
This is pretty much my experience when I worked my first fast food job as well. I didn't realize how terrible they treated folks, I just figured it was the norm.
We're getting one of these near here soon. I'll have o check it out, if only so I have an option between chicken that makes me want to kill myself (KFC) and funding anti-gay activity (chick-fil-a).
It actually seems to me that the problem is that the fast food chains have priced themselves out of functionality due to over competition, not that the people who work there don't deserve benefits. When a company has to resort to abusive/disfunctional employeement practices just to stay in business, the problem isn't the employees. It's the market. We're going to see a massive market correction in the service industry very soon, but it's arguable that this is a good thing because it will lead to better service overall.
And yes, everything Bowielee has described has happened at every minimum wage job I've ever had. All are also illegal... but that doesn't matter because your working a minimum wage job and therefore don't have the money to hire a lawyer to fight it in court. Even if you did, the amount you'd be awarded would be a pittance, especially if you had to offer up a sizable portion of your settlement to your lawyer. Honestly, the best way to get back at them when they try this is to just walk-off the job in middle of a busy time. You may lose your job but you've also shown them that abuse only leads to more frustration for them.
Cajungal
Staff member
AshburnerX It's not bad chicken fingers. The sauce is more famous, but it's easy to imitate.
Anyway, health care.
Anyway, health care.
I can't find any English language source to back me up on this for the moment, but a Belgian government study on this issue found that healthy people, on average, cost health care more than heavy smokers/drinkers/eaters do - the risk groups die off a lot younger. Average life expectancy of 8 or 10 years more, many of those in retirement homes, with several operations and usually near the end needing very high amounts of care (diapers, someone to wash you, feed you, clothe you) more than even out earlier cancer or liver failure problems. These comparisons were a few years old, so it would seem plausible that with more and more actually curing treatments available (organ donors, better radiation techniques, stem cell transplants,...) we'll see the unhealthy living longer again, but needing more care to do so - this isn't the case yet, though.
@GasBandit: As Ash said, the problem isn't the jobs but the market. We still have bars and restaurants here in Belgium - more per capita than the US, in fact - and all of our waiters have health insurance and make at least minimum wage. More exactly, they tend to make a lot more, since work in horeca is considered among the most heavy physically exhausting jobs we have - that is, of course, because I know plenty people who work in bars and routinely do 14 hour shifts, even longer in the weekends. Not many people can or want to work those kinds of hours, standing up, walking around, getting treated like crap. It's why we import people
from Africa
. Anyway, you may see restaurant prices increase a bit to cover the health insurance. So what? You're already paying their taxes and so on for them as well - it's the nature of the beast.
GasBandit
Staff member
My only note is that nothing in the real world is based upon what you "deserve." What you earn/negotiate is what you get, not what you "deserve." Many people get less than they deserve, and many people get more. That's a specious measurement, and entirely subjective.
Yeah, most of the money spent in health care is in end-of-life care in the last few years... the 80 year olds trying to stave off the reaper for a few more years. It's a sensitive discussion because we all realize it's just pouring money down a hole, but nobody wants to sentence Meemaw to die. Thus the cost of insurance keeps going up as the baby boomers start to enter their twilight years as the insurance companies start to brace themselves for all the hip replacements, chemo sessions, and other heroic surgery to give them a few more years of bankrupting their grandchildren.
BTW all your text was forced into black, and using a dark theme, I had to quote it to read it.
You're talking about restaurants with waiters, which is different from fast food. Here, waiters can actually make really good money too, especially the hard working ones you reference who pull double shifts and are good at what they do. What is at discussion here are fast food jobs - counter cashiers and back room food prep with no waiters. McDonalds type stuff (you don't have waiters at McDonald's in Belgium, do you...?). These jobs were really never intended to be a career - rather, part time/first employment for young people in school or just entering the workforce, working largely for minimum wage. The foodservice equivalent of a paper route on your bike.@GasBandit: As Ash said, the problem isn't the jobs but the market. We still have bars and restaurants here in Belgium - more per capita than the US, in fact - and all of our waiters have health insurance and make at least minimum wage. More exactly, they tend to make a lot more, since work in horeca is considered among the most heavy physically exhausting jobs we have - that is, of course, because I know plenty people who work in bars and routinely do 14 hour shifts, even longer in the weekends. Not many people can or want to work those kinds of hours, standing up, walking around, getting treated like crap. It's why we import people
from Africa
Sorry, I have absolutely no idea why or how. I know that's annoying as heck.
Eh. McD and similar still have waiters here, yes. Most don't come from behind the counter, but the pay's the same. You may be forgetting that in Belgium, "rounding up" is by most people considered decent tipping, and people like me who tend to give about 5% are regarded as "generous" to downright "excessive" - I've literally gotten into fights over it. A lot of people, even good and decent people who are otherwise free with their money, just don't tip here, even for very good service. Service is supposed to be included.
GasBandit
Staff member
"Still" have waiters?! They've NEVER had waiters here.
Wait, you TIP at McDonald's?!
No wonder your country doesn't have any money left over to... you know... matter on the world stage.
No, we don't tip - that was my point. But, excepting very high-end places where waiting is done by *real* professionals, a waiter/cashier/boy will make roughly the same working a 10 hour shift at McD or at a regular restaurant. This isn't quite true in the US, since crappy cashier at McD makes minimum wage while a decent waiter at a restaurant will make possibly-less-but-can-get-decent-tips.
In Belgium, both make about the same: crappy per-hour, pretty good per-month (for someone without a degree or some good skills) if you're willing to put up with it.
Everything would just start getting more expensive in Canada then.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, I almost immediately started to think of a number of reasons why this could never be implemented in a way that could work. Heck, even if the US went single payer and did like the guy in the video says and had a massive bidding war for all the artificial hip replacement parts in the US, it'd really just drive all but one of the artificial hip companies out of business, and then next time there was bidding there wouldn't be more than 1 bidder.[DOUBLEPOST=1377112141,1377112102][/DOUBLEPOST]
Higher education is definitely one of the bubbles that needs to pop soon. It's gotten ridiculous.
But that is actual Socialism.
GasBandit
Staff member
Well, it's centralized government regulation, yes, but not exactly socialism. Certainly not to the extent adopting single payer would be. It'd be more akin to price-fixing laws - which aren't exactly lasses-faire either of course. But one would think that what a true socialist system spends per capita should be able to be the upper limit of what a capitalist system costs per capita.
But like I said, I've already thought of several reasons why it wouldn't work, and I was just spitballin' to begin with.
I'm just saying, providing health care is welfare. Where controlling the means of production is socialism.
GasBandit
Staff member
But capping prices isn't "controlling the means of production." Providing healthcare itself would be controlling the means.
If an important reason of healthcare being overpriced is education being overpriced, shouldn't the government do something there too? I mean, not being able to get healthcare is more dramatic, but education is as much of a right to me. Actually, in a society that prides itself in equal opportunity, I'd say a problem in the access to education should be considered worse...
Also, making sure that there is free/cheap decent education for anyone who wants it is way cheaper for the government than making sure there is free/cheap decent healthcare for everyone.
Also, making sure that there is free/cheap decent education for anyone who wants it is way cheaper for the government than making sure there is free/cheap decent healthcare for everyone.
GasBandit
Staff member
I've not exactly done research into the causes, but I think tacit collusion might have something to do with it. A quick google shows that the cost of higher education has gone up 12x over the last 30 years (compared to the cost of health care having gone up a paltry 6x and the cost of food having merely doubled). There's apparently a big argument going on about whether the increased cost of education is the fault of the universities or not, with one side saying it's because colleges are spending more money on administrators and resources, and the other saying that they have to do that because now students expect more out of their colleges such as "planned student life activities, career counselors, fancy dorms, nice gyms and up-to-date technology." They also say they need more administrators to handle compliance with the increasing levels of regulation on education, and they're getting less money in state budgets. And of course some will always blame the expense of collegiate athletic programs, while others will come back with college sports being an alternative revenue generator in various forms.
GasBandit
Staff member
Could be part of it too. I've often said one of the things driving the increasing cost of health care is the fact that for so long we've been completely divorced from the actual cost of our health care. We want the best available and "whatever, it doesn't cost me anything, I pay my premiums. So charge the insurance company whatever the hell you want just give me my sessions in the SuperMechaDiagnosoTreatmentMachinePilldispenser." Something similar could really be said for the increased availability of more and more ridiculous levels of credit for educational loans letting universities charge whatever they think they can get away with because it's the same upfront cost to the student - nada but deferred responsibility! So where's the keg and my complimentary sorority chick? Wooo!
Fun fact: employer provided health insurance originally came about as a way to maintain competitive hiring in the face of insane wage control laws. "The government won't let us pay you more, but if you work for us we'll pay for most of your health insurance too instead! Whaddaya say?"
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The reliance on College Sports as a revenue stream is almost at an end anyhow. It's entirely likely colleges will have to start paying their athletes like the professionals they are (instead of profiting off of their images and accomplishments) within the next few years, thanks mainly to numerous lawsuits being brought up. The EA/NCAA lawsuit that is heading toward the Supreme Court is just the tip of the ice burg. Once this happens, I fully expect athletic scholarships to get gutted like all the other ones.
