I have to say, that was a darn generous amount of vacation time. My former long-term employer (large and quite generous in many ways) maxed employees out at 20 days no matter how long you worked there.
thanks for confirming, ct.
My wifeās smart. She has spent most of her vacation during our trip abroad this past August. Even then, she had barely got her vacation approved. Now, she uses her sick leaves and vacation days more periodically. Under her pharmacy management, her store has been consistently #1 in prescription fills and other areas of pharmacy performances for years. Sheās been suffering from lingering effects of shingles which she contracted a few months ago. Her cumulative stresses from her work had played a significant role in contracting shingles. Combined with whatās happening now, she has no motivation to work her butts off.
Reading this certainly makes the case for private unions. The companies canāt just get rid of benefits while you are under contract (and increasing management bonuses while patting themselves on the back for cost savings). I understand when businesses are losing money and have no other choice, however, often that is not the case.
@TiggerDad, it really makes me sad that benefits are summarily taken away from employees with no discussion and no attempt to be fair to long term employees.
Iām sure morale will be affected and am sad your wife has suffered from stress which could indeed have contributed to her shingles and reoccurrences of symptoms.
The pharmacist and especially if sheās a manager has a huge effect on the storeāthatās why I got my extended family and everyone I care about to use my favorite pharmacist. Heās cheerful and tries to do right by all his customers AND staff.
It does make a case for why unions are still useful IF they act in employees best interests (sadly they donāt seem to often).
My husband lost his job a month ago and took early retirement at the age of 63. He HAD planned to work until age 65 and then we would both retire - I am 3.5 years younger and had planned to use COBRA for my pre-retirement health care. So much for those plans!
We looked into the ACA, but I donāt trust its existence in the long-term (or even in the short-term). For us, COBRA will no longer work, at least as I had originally planned when I was thinking about retiring at age 62-ish. There just arenāt a lot of good options beyond COBRA and/or the ACA - I looked at plans offered through organizations or colleges, but many of those will not cover anyone with a pre-existing condition.
Hereās what we did: I am just going to have to work longer than I would like, simply for the health insurance. 
Insurance companies currently canāt deny you coverage for preexisting conditions due to the Affordable Care Act - this is true whether you buy your insurance independently or through the exchange. Legislation protecting ALL Americans. Granted,some politicians want to take that away so it can disappear but Iām confused that you are experiencing that now, @scout59?
Well, maybe I didnāt read them carefully enough, @doschicos, because they were pretty pricey and didnāt cover much, as compared to the coverage through my employer. All I remember was that there really werenāt any good options for us beyond my continuing to work.
My brain has been pretty foggy lately - 2018 has not been my favorite year!
The higher the prices go for policies which donāt consider pre-existing conditions, the more likely it is that the system will break down. Unless you get exchange or employer subsidies it is not a rational decision for most healthy young people to pay $350+ per month for an individual policy with a $6000 deductible.
We are incredibly grateful to still have our pre-ACA family PPO policy (that weāve had since 2005) costing just over $1000 per month with a $3500 deductible per person, wide network and 100% coverage after that. The ACA-compliant policies have worse terms and are 2.5-3 times more expensive. But D18 was excluded from the policy due to a pre-existing condition (and had to pay for a separate, much more expensive ACA policy before she got cheap coverage through her university) so I certainly see both the pros and the cons.
@Twoin18 Who offers this plan you have? With the advent of ACA, all plans are ACA-compliant absent some exceptions like Health Care Sharing Ministries (HCSMS).
@doschicos Itās a legacy Blue Shield individual PPO plan. Fortunately they kept the plans in place for existing (pre-2010) holders while conforming them to the minimum ACA requirements (annual free physical, no lifetime limit) rather than simply abandoning them like many other insurers and forcing customers to buy new ACA plans. Of course you canāt get subsidies from the exchanges but thatās not an issue for us.
So it is now ACA-compliant in terms of the healthcare coverage (actually better because they are prohibited from narrowing the network, whereas this happens every year for new ACA policies) but the original underwriting was based on us being healthy so the costs are based on a relatively low risk pool.
For those of you who are continuing to work solely for your health insurance - is it because of cost, coverage, or both? We are still under COBRA, but that will end for us in another year. The coverage with dhās former employer is good - itās a PPO. I have no doubt that when we have to do something different we will pay more and have to be in an HMO. With a major downsize and no debt, we still forged ahead with dh retiring knowing full well that our largest single expense will eventually be health insurance. Actually, it probably is now. Iām not sure what we are paying (itās a lot), though I fully expect it will increase when we have to get something different. While I certainly would rather spend our money on other things, it is what it is.
Big problems will arise, for pre-medicare retirees and for our kids or anyone who switches jobs, if the lawsuit by 10 or 20 red states (and now supported by the Federal government) to overturn key aspects of Obamacare, including not allowing insurers to rule out prior conditions, succeeds. I donāt know how it works in court, but the Federal government should be defending the lawsuit and they are now saying that the government doesnāt disagree with the plaintiffs.
HIPAA eliminated excluding pre-existing conditions if you had insurance for 12 months prior to joining the new plan, which is a common scenario when changing jobs.
Would this this provision of HIPAA still apply if the pre-existing condition part of ACA gets overturned or eliminated?
I have a vague recollection that is the case, if you had insurance for a certain number of months, pre-existing conditions can be insured.
Iām just breathing a sigh of relief that DH will get onto Medicare before I retire.
His pre-existing conditions will be covered from now on (Well, we hopeā¦)
Thereās an article today in a nearby cityās newspaper about the Walgreens benefit changes.
The working poor are getting hit and bit worse that many of us. I know life can get very discouraging. I talked to one of my LPN students - her H is a truck driver and has some low back issues. His new job has health insurance but he declined because they have bills to pay - I told her to at least consider having him take out coverage for single/him so he can keep working and get the right treatment to stay working (their kids are covered under low income insurance through our state, which is good for kids 0 - 18 with low income parents). There was a good article in June 2017 Consumer Reports that I am making a copy for her (having H read as well - he has a bulging disk in his cervical spine causing some upper back issues from a dorsal nerve - he just had a out patient injection which gave him some relief).
I work with people that make some decisions about insurance, 401k contribution with company match, - they tend to think day by day and not about the big picture.
Many of us consider ourselves āmiddle classā but IMHO there is a lower middle class and upper middle class - and if one has health issues/expensive health insurance or LTC cost/job loss or job reductions prior to age 65, that can throw one down on QOL and also financial security fairly quickly.
Wow, the Dow fell over 800 points today. Normal market correction?
The IMF report on slower than predicted global growth going forward plus US rates worries. Trade war worries are finally being reflected in the markets.
Judging by how well defensive stocks did in the past two months, a drop like this was expected by savvy investors.