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I beg to differ. It is the most realistic option we have! Anything else just perpetuates the status quo and we continue to have no real health care system...just more of the same old same Disease Management system under the guise of Health Care.
Removing MD/DO from primary care is not realistic and it's not a good idea. Insurance reform will allow patients and doctors to do more for preventive care. Natural health care excels at the treatment of chronic conditions that western medicine often struggles with, but if I am in a car accident or having chest pains, I want to be taken to an MD. Integrative medicine is the best option.
If one is on salary, you are expected to work as long as it takes to get the task done. I pay my staff a salary with the understanding that a certain amount of work / production be accomplished per work day. Most of the time, they get it done in a "normal" day. But, some days, they don't.
I'm under the same type of pressure - Heck, I've had some 90 hour weeks recently - including some all nighters. But, the work got done.
One does what one has to do.
I do believe he has a point though , GreatDay. Putting an employee on "salary" is a great little wayt o get more hours out of an employee but paying "less". For example, one of my first jobs.. when the company started taking off and I was working "overtime" to help get the tasks done (launching a dot com at the time.. I LOVED The work.. and I was making some nice overtime). When raise time came they offered me .25 an hour (I laughed at that.. if you knew what my job went from being to what it had become. .you'd know the joke that was.. too long to explain in this post).. I did finally negotiate a little better salary (I was only 20 at the time.. so if it were today I wuold have been able to negotiate better..looking back I'm surprised at how brazen I even was to laugh at their initial .25/hr raise..LOL) but they put me on salary and took away all my overtime potential.. yet still required me to put in the same dedication.
He is mistaken in a lot of his post though. MOst companies CAN NOT discriminate based on having a baby etc.. and there is maternity leave, although not much by other countries standards. Adn there ARE some labor laws in place.. thank god for that.. but, again.. there are ways for corporations to finagle their way around that anyway.
I do believe he has a point though , GreatDay. Putting an employee on "salary" is a great little wayt o get more hours out of an employee but paying "less". For example, one of my first jobs.. when the company started taking off and I was working "overtime" to help get the tasks done (launching a dot com at the time.. I LOVED The work.. and I was making some nice overtime). When raise time came they offered me .25 an hour (I laughed at that.. if you knew what my job went from being to what it had become. .you'd know the joke that was.. too long to explain in this post).. I did finally negotiate a little better salary (I was only 20 at the time.. so if it were today I wuold have been able to negotiate better..looking back I'm surprised at how brazen I even was to laugh at their initial .25/hr raise..LOL) but they put me on salary and took away all my overtime potential.. yet still required me to put in the same dedication.
He is mistaken in a lot of his post though. MOst companies CAN NOT discriminate based on having a baby etc.. and there is maternity leave, although not much by other countries standards. Adn there ARE some labor laws in place.. thank god for that.. but, again.. there are ways for corporations to finagle their way around that anyway.
A company can't just decide to put someone on salary to get more work out of them. They have to meet certain guidelines and one of them is that they have to be at a certain level of pay. The salary option is designed to for managers and higher level employees who have discretion over their work. A salaried employee simply has to get the job done.
I do believe he has a point though , GreatDay. Putting an employee on "salary" is a great little wayt o get more hours out of an employee but paying "less". For example, one of my first jobs.. when the company started taking off and I was working "overtime" to help get the tasks done (launching a dot com at the time.. I LOVED The work.. and I was making some nice overtime). When raise time came they offered me .25 an hour (I laughed at that.. if you knew what my job went from being to what it had become. .you'd know the joke that was.. too long to explain in this post).. I did finally negotiate a little better salary (I was only 20 at the time.. so if it were today I wuold have been able to negotiate better..looking back I'm surprised at how brazen I even was to laugh at their initial .25/hr raise..LOL) but they put me on salary and took away all my overtime potential.. yet still required me to put in the same dedication.
He is mistaken in a lot of his post though. MOst companies CAN NOT discriminate based on having a baby etc.. and there is maternity leave, although not much by other countries standards. Adn there ARE some labor laws in place.. thank god for that.. but, again.. there are ways for corporations to finagle their way around that anyway.
AFAIK, FMLA doesn't apply to ALL corps... in fact...
"Only 40% of American workers are eligible for the 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. "
And that is UNPAID leave.
Yes, i was a salaried worker... companies often USE and abuse that to force you to go as much as you can.
In WHAT exactly am i mistaken, please correct me?
I never said there were NO labor laws, but that they are sparse.
Compared to some 190 other nations, including some African ones, they are a JOKE.
Minimum salary is only protection i can think of. But even that... many illegals work for less than that.
When i spoke of protection i MEANT->paid vacation, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave AND limiting UPPER work hours, in order for workers to get more rest.
USA provides none of these things i mentioned.
"One of the main — and unacknowledged — drivers of overwork is the expanding definition of salaried employees. When the Fair Labor Standards Act codified the salary designation, it was intended to apply only to top administrators and managers. Over the last two decades, the classification has been stretched to include more and more of us, particularly after new, elastic rules by the Bush administration that could turn everyone from chefs to preschool teachers into salaried workers. In addition, hundreds of thousands of hourly workers, from burger flippers to insurance adjusters, are misclassified as salaried. The explosion of salaried employees — now 40% of all workers (including a huge jump in salaried caregivers) — is without doubt having major repercussions on divorce rates, child care, civic responsibilities and drug sales. Wake up and smell the Paxil."
"Insurance coverage should not be tied to employment."
This is a key issue that merits more discussion. The savings to business is hard to document but I think most would agree that there are savings to be had. Better yet, our system is set and rewards productivity, or at least vested interests with capital, will help advance a program.
And, over the last few years, Medicare has been reducing their reimbursment schedules - lowering the $$$'s paid to Doctors - causing more and more physicans to stop taking Medicare and Medicare patients.
Then those docs won't be in business very long.
1. Medicare generally is about 40% of a physicians book of business.
so lets assume they can walk away from 40%.. guess what.. they can't get managed care contracts because the managed care companies won't deal with a provider that doesn't have a medicare ID.
So now.. the physicians are going to lose another lets say 30-35% of their business..
or they can play an out of network strategy which isn't a very good long term strategy.
They had better have some very very very good self pay patients to make up the difference (and a whole bunch of em')
When i spoke of protection i MEANT->paid vacation, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave AND limiting UPPER work hours, in order for workers to get more rest.
USA provides none of these things i mentioned.
First off, the Government would not provide such things. The employer would. And, it would be a significant cost to the employer to provide your suggested mandates. This cost would of course have to be pass through to the consumers through higher prices for goods and services.
In effect, it would put tremendous inflationary pressure on the economy.
Then of course, you have the high percentage of independent contractors / self employed here in the United States - they would not have the benefit of all these "perks" you suggest.
So, the "employee" would then have an unfair advantage over those "non-employees" -
I personally know a number of physicans who have dropped Medicare and as a result, they have been able to accept new non medicare patients to fill in the holes.
AFAIK, FMLA doesn't apply to ALL corps... in fact...
"Only 40% of American workers are eligible for the 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. "
And that is UNPAID leave.
Yes, i was a salaried worker... companies often USE and abuse that to force you to go as much as you can.
In WHAT exactly am i mistaken, please correct me?
I never said there were NO labor laws, but that they are sparse.
Compared to some 190 other nations, including some African ones, they are a JOKE.
Minimum salary is only protection i can think of. But even that... many illegals work for less than that.
When i spoke of protection i MEANT->paid vacation, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave AND limiting UPPER work hours, in order for workers to get more rest.
USA provides none of these things i mentioned.
"One of the main — and unacknowledged — drivers of overwork is the expanding definition of salaried employees. When the Fair Labor Standards Act codified the salary designation, it was intended to apply only to top administrators and managers. Over the last two decades, the classification has been stretched to include more and more of us, particularly after new, elastic rules by the Bush administration that could turn everyone from chefs to preschool teachers into salaried workers. In addition, hundreds of thousands of hourly workers, from burger flippers to insurance adjusters, are misclassified as salaried. The explosion of salaried employees — now 40% of all workers (including a huge jump in salaried caregivers) — is without doubt having major repercussions on divorce rates, child care, civic responsibilities and drug sales. Wake up and smell the Paxil."
The rules are still tight on who can be considered salaried, many lawsuits have been won for back overtime due to improper classification as salaried. I would suggest employees educate themselves before agreeing to a salary.
The US leaves paid leave up to employers, most companies do offer full time employees sick leave, vacations.... It doesn't compare to Europe, but a company needs to offer something to stay competitive.
AFAIK, FMLA doesn't apply to ALL corps... in fact...
"Only 40% of American workers are eligible for the 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. "
And that is UNPAID leave.
Yes, i was a salaried worker... companies often USE and abuse that to force you to go as much as you can.
In WHAT exactly am i mistaken, please correct me?
I never said there were NO labor laws, but that they are sparse.
Compared to some 190 other nations, including some African ones, they are a JOKE.
Minimum salary is only protection i can think of. But even that... many illegals work for less than that.
When i spoke of protection i MEANT->paid vacation, paid leave, paid sick leave, paid maternity leave AND limiting UPPER work hours, in order for workers to get more rest.
USA provides none of these things i mentioned.
"One of the main — and unacknowledged — drivers of overwork is the expanding definition of salaried employees. When the Fair Labor Standards Act codified the salary designation, it was intended to apply only to top administrators and managers. Over the last two decades, the classification has been stretched to include more and more of us, particularly after new, elastic rules by the Bush administration that could turn everyone from chefs to preschool teachers into salaried workers. In addition, hundreds of thousands of hourly workers, from burger flippers to insurance adjusters, are misclassified as salaried. The explosion of salaried employees — now 40% of all workers (including a huge jump in salaried caregivers) — is without doubt having major repercussions on divorce rates, child care, civic responsibilities and drug sales. Wake up and smell the Paxil."
I stand corrected..I thought all employers had to give maternity leave (yes, without pay which stinks!!).
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