Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yep, it’s because employers are responsible for developing talent and creating a culture and atmosphere. Walk into an average McDonald’s and then walk into a chic fillet or Culver’s.
It’s the same thing that went on in retail. People used to make careers out of certain jobs. Where you could rise the ranks and lead a department. As an example, when I was younger, JC penny would have people in their departments that were extremely knowledgeable and helpful. When I got fitted for my suit, they knew everything about it. Everything. And helped set me up. The shoe people? Knew shoes.
Go in there today, and he’s probably long gone, replaced with some commodity employee they have stuck in there who doesn’t give a **** about anything. But then again, why would they? You have to give people a reason to care, reward growth, have a path for them they can take pride in.
Employers create win win situations for higher end employees that they value. Why? Because they have to. I’ve never once seen any of the games and abuse (outside of my first job before college). I’ve heard about on these forums. But I believe people when they say it happens. Raises are locked no matter how you stack up, there’s limited growth, just in time schedule, and all other manner of nonsense.
To these employers, adapt…or don’t and die. Your employees are stakeholders, and part of the responsibility is on you to attract, retain, and develop it. Come to find out, in certain parts of the cycle, you might have to adjust and offer jobs that don’t suck..,even on the low end (gasp)
And you also hit on another major thing that’s one of my biggest pet peeves. Management that only understands cost cutting. And not value.
Yes, you can get employees cheaper…..but what costs does that have in turnover, mistakes, brand damage, lost sales…making people shop online instead…ect ect. Sometimes the “cost” doesn’t show up until it’s too late. Anytime in business I hear the next jackass come in talking about cost and ignoring value, I assume they’re absolutely clueless about business.
When my last image out the door at JC penny is someone throwing my **** in a bag and snapping bubble gum while they don’t say a word to me….it creates a different impression than the suit and shoe salesman that made sure everything was proper for my industry.
Nowadays, employees say, the pay for being "manager" of a department isn't enough to make it worth the hassle of managing people. IOW, they're not getting paid much more than the people they manage. Few even want to "rise through the ranks", because of that.
Penny's now doesn't even have staff people in most departments anymore. Only in a couple of departments. Macy's cut back on staff 20 years ago or more, so that one person is handling the cashier and customer service (both functions) for several departments. When you're able to find that person, they're very good, very helpful and knowledgeable about their stock, but you have to chase them down through several related departments. A Macy's "manager" who was being transferred across the country to San Francisco posted on C-D once, asking if there was housing available within their budget. It was very sad to see, that the company expected the employee to accept a transfer without paying them anywhere near enough for Bay Area rents.
Companies are no longer interested in building employee loyalty. The concept has been relegated to the dustbin of history, for the post part. They don't want to spend the money that's required to engender job satisfaction and company loyalty. Maybe retail will devolve into no customer service whatsoever; just people sitting at home clicking on items they want on their computer screens, waiting for parcels to arrive in the mail, then returning the items due to bad fit or poor quality. This, being touted as all about "convenience".
About 40 percent of Americans are on Medicare, Medicaid, SSI, VA, whatever name fits - "Universal health care" already. And I'm not even including the 87 percent of 11.9 million Americans who signed up for healthcare on healthcare.gov and got it subsidized.
I think that many Americans think that if they are covered by "universal health care" they will receive the same standard of care that they receive now - large private rooms,timely appointments, etc. Sorry, won't happen. Even many countries which have "universal health care" (and the taxes required to offer it) also have private insurance companies and services that individuals pay for separately. Just keep that in mind.
And this is coming from someone who pays an exorbitant amount of money for what is basically catastrophic only insurance. But it sure did come in handy when I had an accident a year or so ago and spent several days in the hospital and had to have surgery.
The hospital in my town converted ALL its rooms to private rooms. If insurance isn't ok with paying for that, the patients will have to make up the difference. Shared hospital rooms are becoming a thing of the past.
I researched single-payer systems in a couple of countries. In Sweden, timely appointments don't happen, except for emergencies or critical cases. People don't even use the "free" health care for lesser complaints. They have a variety of home remedies for colds, flu, stomach upsets and various things, and if that's not enough, some have med care savings accounts, so they can pay cash for the doctors that don't take insurance, who will see patients right away. You're right, that timely appointments are the first thing to go with "free" health care. I've heard this is true of the VA hospitals and clinics.
The hospital in my town converted ALL its rooms to private rooms. If insurance isn't ok with paying for that, the patients will have to make up the difference. Shared hospital rooms are becoming a thing of the past.
I researched single-payer systems in a couple of countries. In Sweden, timely appointments don't happen, except for emergencies or critical cases. People don't even use the "free" health care for lesser complaints. They have a variety of home remedies for colds, flu, stomach upsets and various things, and if that's not enough, some have med care savings accounts, so they can pay cash for the doctors that don't take insurance, who will see patients right away. You're right, that timely appointments are the first thing to go with "free" health care. I've heard this is true of the VA hospitals and clinics.
With my second THR, after my initial appointment, when I called them to schedule the surgery, they offered a time that was within 2 weeks That was much sooner than I was prepared for , and honestly I was a bit flabbergasted as normally it is a couple of months to schedule. But Covid apparently had somewhat cleared their schedules and they had tons of open slots. I have never really had an issue with getting timely appointments though, for anything, except when I had to reschedule my annual physical. I had to wait 2 months out for that, but that practice is a super busy one, and a physical is certainly something that can wait.
WMT,TGT,AMZN and others are raising wages and adding more benefits to their workers.
TGT pays $18-$24.
AMZN warehouse $28.
Some cant go to work as they need to care for their kids.
Some are in the hospital.
Some have become UBER/LYFT/DASH drivers.
Raising wages is a good start, and it addresses some of the issues, but not all. When someone at Amazon still has to p*ss in a water bottle because they aren't allowed to take a bathroom break, it's still not a place where people want to work.
Not really relevant to the point you're trying to make because of cultural influences, like obesity. If quality of care was exactly equal a country with an obesity rate of 36% will have a shorter lifespan than a country like Denmark where it is under 20%. Americans also have far more accidental deaths, mainly because we drive a lot more and faster.
A better metric for quality of healthcare is survival rates for major diseases:
Interesting charts. The only disease the USA leads the world in terms of survival rates for is breast cancer. We don't do nearly as well with heart problems and strokes as I would have imagined. The USA looks good overall in terms of cancer survival rates, but other countries like South Korea seem to be doing a little better. Also, Canada spends about 2/3's of what we do on medical costs as a percentage of GDP, yet Canada barely ranks below the USA in terms of survival treating all types of cancer. Maybe a trade off of one-third of medical costs is reasonable for a 2% less chance of surviving cancer for five years?
What I get out of all this is that in America we spent far more of our GDP for healthcare and our outcomes--based on any metric--are not particularly good.
I want to be fair about this. I'm having some problems with my knees that require shots. I went in yesterday and was seen by a competent, polite physician that I met a couple of years ago. I had to make my appointment ten days in advance which I felt was reasonable. The bill for this service even without insurance is not particularly high. Our system is not totally broken, but it does need to become far more concerned about cost and outcomes than it seems to be.
Maybe a trade off of one-third of medical costs is reasonable for a 2% less chance of surviving cancer for five years?
I suspect if you were the one with cancer you'd think differently, but to your point yes I think USA has a very inefficient wasteful healthcare system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359
What I get out of all this is that in America we spent far more of our GDP for healthcare and our outcomes--based on any metric--are not particularly good.
That isn't how I'd interpret outcomes.
USA
Colorectal cancer #5
Breast cancer #1
Cervical cancer #19
Heart attack #7
Hemorrhagic stroke #16
Ischemic stroke #4
Top five in three categories, top ten in four, and top 20 in all. All this despite aforementioned problems with obesity that surely impact survival rates for major diseases.
The hospital in my town converted ALL its rooms to private rooms. If insurance isn't ok with paying for that, the patients will have to make up the difference. Shared hospital rooms are becoming a thing of the past.
I researched single-payer systems in a couple of countries. In Sweden, timely appointments don't happen, except for emergencies or critical cases. People don't even use the "free" health care for lesser complaints. They have a variety of home remedies for colds, flu, stomach upsets and various things, and if that's not enough, some have med care savings accounts, so they can pay cash for the doctors that don't take insurance, who will see patients right away. You're right, that timely appointments are the first thing to go with "free" health care. I've heard this is true of the VA hospitals and clinics.
That's mostly and apples to cornbread argument. US wait times to see doctors can be fairly long. The much more critical wait times between diagnosis and treatment are the socialized medicine pain points. My mother went from Hodgkins Disease diagnosis/staging studies to treatment in a couple of days. In England a 60 day wait is within limits.
Anyway the bit you posted as about hearing from a PCP within a day. That's not a very helpful stat.
Could have cut it off myself. Maybe the scar would be slightly worse. If I'd needed more than that, at some point not that much higher than that I'd just acquiesce to death from skin cancer. Only so many $7k hours I can pay for.
I had three moles taken off during a dermatology visit in a very high cost of living area back in 1997. I believe I paid maybe $120 (not $1,200). She just quick froze them and took a razor blade or scalpel or whatever. Nothing ever came back, no scars, etc. I cannot believe $1,200 -- that is a total rip off. That derm did it while we were talking about doing it (without making another appointment even). WTF? I mean, I could be misremembering as it might have been $60. It wasn't much because I was living very, very frugally at the time.
That's mostly and apples to cornbread argument. US wait times to see doctors can be fairly long. The much more critical wait times between diagnosis and treatment are the socialized medicine pain points. My mother went from Hodgkins Disease diagnosis/staging studies to treatment in a couple of days. In England a 60 day wait is within limits.
Anyway the bit you posted as about hearing from a PCP within a day. That's not a very helpful stat.
Again, I think its a mistake to judge a health care system solely by how it treats rare medical conditions. Countries that have universal health care do a really good job with more basic care that also eliminates problems down the road. They are great with well child visits and up-to-date vaccinations. They deal effectively with strep throats and ear infections. Hodgkin's Disease? Maybe not so much. But that is something that is only going to happen to a few people and generally with an older population. Some rationing of health care occurs in all systems. I think it makes more sense to ration specialty procedures to an older population than basic care to the younger population (as we do based on economics) in the USA.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
That was much sooner than I was prepared for 
, and honestly I was a bit flabbergasted as normally it is a couple of months to schedule. But Covid apparently had somewhat cleared their schedules and they had tons of open slots. I have never really had an issue with getting timely appointments though, for anything, except when I had to reschedule my annual physical. I had to wait 2 months out for that, but that practice is a super busy one, and a physical is certainly something that can wait.
