Amazon's on-site emergency care endangers its employees | Hacker News Reader

Amazon's on-site emergency care endangers its employees

theintercept.com

74 pointsAndrewBissell11 comments

As an outsider it is kind of "creepy" (cannot think of a better word) that employers are involved in their employees healthcare at all. As this article makes clear there's a huge conflict of interests that will result in employees health needs being placed relative to what best serves the employer.

But this isn't isolated just to "on-site clinics." Employers also have a motive to fire employees that are costly on self-funded insurance schemes (even if it is illegal), or to send employees to employer contracted "workers comp clinics" who seemingly exist to protect the employer from liability rather than treatment.

Why is employment and healthcare intermingled at all in the US? It has caused nothing but problems, hurts competition ("free market" where you cannot pick your own insurance provider), hurts people, and adds needless complexity to an already needlessly complex system.

> Why is employment and healthcare intermingled at all in the US? It has caused nothing but problems, hurts competition ("free market" where you cannot pick your own insurance provider), hurts people, and adds needless complexity to an already needlessly complex system.

In the WWII era, the federal government handed down strict wage controls. Companies still had to compete with one another for workers, but they couldn't offer to pay more. So companies looked for other things they could offer. Health care, and health insurance, was one such.

In at least one case this wound up taking over the whole business. Kaiser Permanente used to be an aluminum and shipbuilding concern with a sideline in healthcare to provide for its many workers.

Wow, that is fascinating. I really like the anecdote about Kaiser, thank you for sharing that.

It seems part of the problem is that only health insurance premiums that exceed 10% of your income are tax-deductible. Insurance through employers comes fully from pre-tax income. This amounts to a significant penalty to those obtaining insurance separate from employment.

Does anyone know why this is the case?

(Not an expert on tax law, so correct me if I’m wrong on this.)

With hundreds of thousands of employees and contractors, there are going to be mistakes made by medical staff. It seems Amazon's emergency care is a cheaper and more convenient alternative to UrgentCare, which is commonly used for handling workplace injuries (which usually aren't covered by personal health insurance plans). This article fails to show that it's worse than a typical UrgentCare facility. It's obvious to me that it wouldn't be as good as an emergency room. As with any job, it's important to get yourself to the emergency room if you don't get referred by the UrgentCare or on-site medical staff and think you need a second opinion.

The article details substantially more than mere mistakes.

It alleges, among other things, employees' care being delayed to hide the injury from on-site auditors.

> The most serious allegation, according to Fagan, involved a temporary worker who suffered a cut to the head while a corporate audit team was inspecting the building. Instead of taking the injured worker to Amcare, managers attempted to hide the person from the auditors. By the time this person was treated, blood had collected into a golf ball-sized protrusion on the worker’s head.

Ooof.

I wonder how much of this is known by the home office or not. Often a pressure to reduce accidents to a floor manager results in a pressure to not report floor accidents.

And where does the “pressure to reduce accidents” arise from?

The home office of course - but working safely has been an ever-present pressure at every company I've ever worked at.

“Amazon could be a leader, and they have the resources,” Fagan said. “They could be a leader in providing good occupational health care to their employees. And they are not doing that.”

BEZOS, YOU HAVE FAILED YOUR PROFESSION!

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