The 90 day period is called "Employment at Will" and it's true that an employer can terminate an employee for any reason or no reason at all during that period. But, a person can still be eligible for unemployment benefits. The first 90 days is for all intents and purposes a "probationary period". If someone leaves a job for a new one and then gets laid off by the new employer after 60 days, they can collect unemployment benefits.

The smoking thing is becoming more popular with employers, especially cities and towns. Firefighters in many towns aren't allowed to smoke because being exposed to toxic substances and smoke as part of someone's job raises the risk of lung disease. Insurance for risky jobs is more costly than insurance for some lazy goof sitting at a desk visiting fishing forums all day.

This is the only part I think you are off on. My understanding of the law is if a person *leaves* their job, they are not eligible for unemployment from that employer in the future. Also, if they are laid off by their next employer within 90 days, the new employer is not on the hook for the unemployment either.

I have won 3 different unemployment appeals based on the above experience.
One said "I'm outta here. I don't have to take this," when a customer complaint was brought to his attention. I told him fine, I accept your resignation, at which point he tried to double back. The arbitrator stated his exclamation was essentially an "I quit".
Second was for a person rightfully fired within 90 days. I had proof he had stolen something and the arbitrator basically said it didn't matter because he was a probationary employee.
Third, the person quit their job with us for another job, was then fired 30 days later from that job and tried to file for unemployment from us. Arbitrator stated that because he quit, he wasn't eligible.

Now, that is all from an employer's standpoint. A person very well may be able to collect unemployment benefits if they leave a job and then are laid off after 60 days. But I know neither of those two employers are liable to pay for it.

Johhny, I'm about 99.9% sure on this since it's my job to be sure about it. Check the Mass DOL website. I terminated a manager after 7 weeks on the job and he was able to collect unemployment from our account. It was a percentage of what he got and the rest came from the "balancing account". The balancing account is just what they call the pool of money collected from all employers for unemployment insurance. So even when a company is not the chargeable employer, they really are still paying a small amount into it.

Did you appeal it?

My appeal came at the advice of our lawyer and resulted with a decision in our favor.

However, this wouldn't be the first time MA DOL made a decision that went against current regulations. So maybe I just lucked out. I do know that I never paid an additional cent for it.

I called someone at DOL and they said it was unlikely it would get reversed because it the termination was not for "disqualifying reasons". I don't really have the time to go to appeals anymore and when I send Mangers or Operations Managers, they usually lose because they don't know what to say.

Makes sense. Even my business partner was somewhat useless at one of the meetings and initially, I wasn't going to go. A good thing I had gone because I'm sure we wouldn't have won the decision.

The only reason any other country's medical systems still work is because of the US medical system and profitable research. If the US goes to a government-controlled system, research will die, and so will billions around the world.

0bamacare may appear to be a decent short-term solution 9if you are a commie) but it is certainly not a long term solution.

the 19 TRILLION price tag isn't doable either unless capitalism is crushed.

What part imagination land did you get your "facts" from?

Looks like the Congressional Budget Office disagrees with Obama's costs
saying the current plans would add to the nation's long term Health Care costs rather than reduce them.

A bi-partisan group of Governors are not to happy saying the plan would call on their state Medicare plans to pick up 30% of the costs.

I wish something like this was being handled by a more bipartisan Congress.

we have a super computer
or two...

why are they not being used ?

to help us Mortals... with these grand decisions

I agree JD.
This is a far reaching issue that deserves a well thought out program rather than
a one party push for political reasons.

These Programs keep growing in time until there is nothing left to fund them.

Pushing 30% of the cost of Health Care on the States, a plan originally meant to
help women with children making less then $10,000/yr, is a typical example of how these programs grow.

Meantime, the Social Security Program, the biggest Ponzi Scheme ever put over
on the American People, has grown close to extinction.

Super computers, don't get votes, Rav. :)

If Obamacare comes to be, how long before the government starts to dictate the other parts of our lives ?

You can't smoke (it is hazardous to your health).

You can't drink alcohol (it hurts your liver).

You are overweight, so no more McDonalds

No more fossil fuel powered vehicles

no more,no more......

Let's hope this hits a wall.

I do agree that healthcare costs are spiraling out of control. But Obamacare isn't the solution.

How about we DO AWAY with ambulance chasers who advertise on TV...

Limiting these types of law suits would go a long way in making health care more affordable IMHO.

The problem isn't in the foundation of the health care system. It's a broken implementation at the state level.

What's the difference if people are getting government subsidized health care or the current system where the feds pay a hospital direct for taking care of people without health care?

you are what you eat
 

preservatives and additives have created poor health in this country..... we call the USA

We have the highest level of agriculture
and yet the lowest level of Nutritional health
with our citizens ....

health care:

it didn't get done during the Clinton Administration
or the Bush Administration

So i don't expect it to get done now........
going on vacation is much more important.

Bingo Mac, pass Tort reform to limit malpractice law suites which will
eliminate unnecessary medical tests and reduce the cost of medical malpractice insurance and you'll lower medical costs immediately.

JD, if i am reading your question right, here in lies the rub.

We don't know what is in the current bill so we can't compare the cost
of the two. Which is the least costly, what is the scope of the plan, how
will we pay for the plan, what will be the effect on current private plans,
will companies do away with their plans to their employees?

We were promised transparency and yet the only thing we
have to go on is Obama's word that this is another emergency and
you will be able to keep your own current plan if you choose.

Not for nothin, but even he doesn't know everything that's in the plan.

No axe to grind here, but this is Obama's plan and it is ALL of us who will end up paying for it. I just want a fair shake with knowing as much
as my senators do before a vote is taken.

What's the rush. :huh:

I can alleviate much of the costs for health care.

My friends know me as a calloused bastard when it comes to my opinion of people who are a waste of life and have/will never contribute to society. 4 years working 911 in Hartford, CT and 2 years in the Boston area give you an insight to the medical field that many haven't a clue about.

I have two proposals:
First the "If you did it to yourself, I'm not helping you" proposal. People in the hospital due to drug abuse, alcohol abuse, "attempted" suicide, effects from smoking and other self-inflicted "medical" conditions get one shot at assistance. Reform yourself or you get nothing. This way, good money isn't thrown at people who have no ambition of improving their lives.
You smoked for 50 years and now you have lung cancer but no insurance? Sorry, game over.
Instead of getting a job, you sat at home putting back a fifth of vodka every day and now your liver doesn't work, sucks to be you.

This has a two-fold benefit. Decreased costs for hospitals serving the uninsured (thus decreased reimbursements from the feds) and a possible decrease crime for obvious reasons.

Second the "We're not paying for your drugs" policy, mandatory drug testing for every person on Welfare, Medicaid or any other government assistance, be it subsidized diapers for your baby or free prescriptions. Fail two drug tests in a 12-month period - Game Over. Why should I pay to help people that refuse to help themselves?

The rush is that unless Obama can do this this year it probably won't get done. Considering it's going to take a decade to roll out, he can declare success moving forward simply because something has been done about the situation.

I agree with the above that this should be a bi-partisan bill simply because of how important it is. While I think a lot of what I'm hearing about the plan from the usual pundits is a lot of fear mongering, there does appear to be a lot in it that's not very desireable.

I don't think tort reform is the magic bullet, but it's a necessary component. There has been some constructive talk in the Senate about working towards rewarding doctors on the quality of care rather than the quantity of care. This is a good model that they should play out.

If Obama is smart he'll put Pelosi in a box on this one and look towards the Senate to find common ground with the GOP. He's already stretched with independent voters on the stim bill and this has the possibility to just kill the Dems in the 2010 cycle as I've mentioned before.

-spence

Your probably right, what he wants may not get done, but when it is properly
thought out, debated with both parties on board it will be a better plan for the American people.
Tort is one of the few things that can be done to save $ immediately imho.

Health care reform was one of the "big 3" issues Obama said he was going to address right off the bat. He's trying to push it through because he made such a big deal about it and he doesn't want it to come back and bite his rear end.

If you want to read something very interesting about health care costs and have a lot of time, check out this article from the New Yorker. It's legnthy but interesting in revealing one of the many reasons for the sky high costs of health care today. The article focuses on one extreme case, but you could probably find a trend if you looked at other towns in the US.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...urrentPage=all

As The New York Post has aptly pointed out, ObamaCare is a sick joke. Here are some facts that refuse to be ignored...

By 52 percent to 40 percent, voters are opposed to the healthcare bill introduced on July 14 to the House of Representatives.

Independents now oppose ObamaCare by a ratio of almost 2:1.

The World Health Organization ranked the United States No. 1 out of 191 countries for being responsive to patients' needs, including providing timely treatments and a choice of doctors. Among those currently insured, 84% are satisfied with their healthcare. But if you're happy, don't get too comfortable: ObamaCare will force people to change their insurance.

Americans recognize now that the Kenyan Kommunist is a left wing radical...I truly enjoy his childish rants and condescension when he fails to get his way, many democrats are backing away but the dem. leadership are committed radicals as well, this is not what many (the hypnotized) voted for and the ONE is slipping into Jimmy Carter territory where he belongs... when your entire foundation and career has been built on little more than hype...it's just a matter of time, enjoy the slide Obama...you can join Carter as a another whiny, failed, angry, bitter, Marxist, dictator hugging ex-President...

i have to dispute that statement because your health insurance provider dictates to you which Doctors you may choose from.

Then, you have to determine whether or not they are accepting
new patients ESPECIALLY when seeking a new primary care physician....

the worst thing about health care as i see it...

is the referral system which is left entirely up to the patient to follow up on to make sure they received it or you are billed IN FULL by the specialist's services. It's almost completely worth it to wait for a written referral letter and give the specialist's staff a copy to avoid this billing issue.

Raven, he's using a statement from W.H.O. that compares health care in the US to other countries. Do you really think you would have more choices of physicians in another country? I haven't looked into it, but I'd be willing to bet my plug collection that there are more doctors to choose from with major health insurance companies here than there are in other countries.

and in a free country you may change healthcare providers if you don't like the doctors in their particular network, would prefer to have the government and it's bureaucrats determining who, when and for what treatments you may seek medical care...DO ANY OF YOU ACTUALLY READ WHAT IS HAPPENING IN OTHER COUNTRIES WITH GOVERNMENT ADMINISTERED SYSTEMS....or do you simply trust Obama's brilliance..OBAMA IS A LIAR....he has to constantly hold these "press conferences" to continually reinforce his lies...it's tough work...

yes it's a free country.... but in our case it is not really our choice.

the company my wife works for makes the decision for us
and recently switched from Tufts to Blue cross...

so, you basically follow what they provide you.

It's still your choice. Your wife can quit her job and go somewhere else that offers the insurance you prefer ,or she can decline coverage and go to whatever doctor you want and pay out of pocket. It's really pretty simple. No plan is going to make everyone happy.

How do you think other countries have it better than us?

that is an option true

just not realistic.... for us.

i made no comparison between the USA
and other countries

or you opt out of what your company provides and go get your own...I listened to a caller to a show who was a small business owner whine that he couldn't afford healthcare yesterday...appparently it was not high on his priority list...there ARE options...46% of the so-called uninsured 18-64 can afford health insurance and chose not to purchase it, probably in lieu of a nice car...

I've been self employed or more than 20 years, when BC/BS reached 1000/month to insure my family I began to look around, at the time in RI the options were BC/BS and United, everyone else had left the state probably due to the level of corruption exitsing between the dems in the state house and BC/BS making it impossible to compete..

I've been with Midwest National Life for years...my monthly premium for a family of 5 is 300/month...I pay for dental visits, checkups, persciptions up to a reasonable deductible out of pocket...hey, just like car insurance...I have relatively high deductibles for major medical but they are a fraction of the difference in yearly premiums that I was paying...allowing me to save

bottom line...if you want healthcare provided to you anytime, anywhere with low or no deductibles and co-pays simply flash a card....it is going to cost you...very attractive on it's face...never going to happen...this "reform" is a disaster if it is passed...

Obama claiming that he can provide the above at low cost is a joke...

there's many options i suppose
 

the emergency room fee's just changed from 50 dollars per visit
to 150 dollars per visit and that's just ridiculous....


seems like the Doctors are all adamant to get you to go get a cat scan or an MRI (someone told me they get a kick back)
and then they don't seem to care about following up on the results after wards. :huh:

Orin Hatch just announced today: He's out and no longer going to debate health care...

:point: that's what his JOB is....

what if all politicians suddenly took his position. :hs:

Generally it takes a team of wild horses to drag me to a Doctors office in the first place.

have you checked different emergency rooms or clinics for prices? this is part of the problem, people will drive miles out of the way to get 10 cent cheaper gas or buy in bulk at BJ's but never "shop" for perscriptions, Dr. visits or other health care in general, it's because they've been conditioned to believe that they can just go get whatever they want or need and someone else will take care of everything...

and now they're told "healthcare(insurance) is a right", when in fact what you are losing is all of your rights as a user of the healthcare system to a large and oppressive government

would you prefer $10 per visit and Larry, Mo and Curly for doctors?:rotf2: "calling Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine"

i just called-what a JOKE
 

I called Blue + Shield and got sent around the merry go round
with the Autobot recordings ... 6 times

Same thing when i called the hospital just to see what an emergency room visit costs.... and i was transfered 5 times
then i got this DAN characters voice mail and he ain't there.

:wall::rotf2::fury: :rotflmao: i guess i lacked a siren.... :confused:

So, aside from the fact that the millionaires will pay for health care, :rolleyes:
what did the American people learn from the President's infomercial/ press conference
on Health-Care?

Almost damaging to your brain to try and figure this stuff out. :)

"It will be at a lower cost" which really means what healthcare you get will be rationed so don't get old or really sick....

Why get government involved? If we could drive down the cost of the insurance Dr's pay, we could cut healthcare costs... Oh, I forgot all the lawmakers are lawyers how stupid of me.

Interesting information I got from another source:
The biggest argument for healthcare reform is the uninsured. The number reform advocates like to use is 46 million or a little over 15% of the population. The reformers never tell us who these people are or why they are uninsured. Doing so would damage their attempt at wholesale changes. According to the Census Bureau in 2007, 9.7 million or 21.0% are non-citizens. There are 18.3 million or 40% of the uninsured are young adults in the 18 – 34 age range. Many of these people don’t see the necessity of paying a health care premium when they are young and healthy. In 2005, the Kaiser Foundation found out that 6 million of the 8 million uninsured children were eligible for existing Federal health insurance, but were not enrolled. 3.1 million parents of these children were also eligible for Federal programs, but were not enrolled. These groups compose over 70% of the uninsured. If you don’t believe that age should be a determining factor in health insurance cover!age, the Census Bureau breaks down the income range of the uninsured. 17.5 million have incomes of $50,000 or more, which goes against the advocates’ picture of everyone being poor, and thus unable to afford coverage.

That's what i say. Ford just posted a 2 billion dollar profit with 0 government help.

Just let capitalism do it's job.

Yes, when you dig a little deeper you find statistics that don't support the 47 million people they say are not insured.

The Urban Institute reports 25% of the uninsured already qualify for some medical insurance program.

The National Bureau Of Economic Research says, "Based on plausible definitions and assumptions, health insurance is affordable for
between 3/4 and 1/4 quarters of adults who are NOT insured.

Those #s go along with what i heard on the news todaythat 43%
of the 47 million can afford insurance but choose not to buy it for whatever reasons.

That would drop the # of uninsured who can't afford insurance to 27 million people.

While there is a need for Health Insurance for the unemployed looking for work, and those that are truly disabled, imho there is no reason to revamp and change our whole current medical system for 277 million people to accommodate 27 million people.

JR may need to check my math, as usual. ;)

New Rasmussen Poll-- 54% polled said they don't want Health Care passed
this year.

The American people are catching up realizing the Administration's Emergencies
are a ploy to, among other things, takeover 1/6 th of the nation's economy
with Health Care.

I'd bet that the only ones who do want it are the ones who have no insurance.....

Huh? One question for everyone, when you were between 18 and 24 did you have or give a crap about health care? I didn't, and I know alot of you didn't either. Why should someone in that age group spend a lot of $$ on health care they are almost certain not to need. They do like I did save the monthly health care costs and pay for that 1 time a year visit that you may get sick and pocket the rest for beer and women.....

CB, that is one of the dumbest things I have heard said (I mean that in a nice way...)

What happens when you are 22 and you have a major car accident or cancer or something else catastrophic happens and you don't have the resources to pay your bills... you either go deeply in debt, or you suck of the gov't teet somehow...

almost certain.... :smash: