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Comment by strathmeyer | Hacker News Reader

Is it is big thing in America now to claim we don't have things we do like time off when we are sick or hospitals to treat us? What on earth is this post about??

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Umm, not everyone gets time off when they're sick. Did you read the linked thread? Many more people can't actually afford to go to a hospital without incurring irresponsible financial burden. Regardless of whether this is the "correct" decision by whatever calculation you do, there are plenty, plenty of people who arrive at the conclusion that they cannot afford to take work off and cannot afford to go to the hospital.

Unfortunately many of those same people occupy "high centrality" nodes in our society - they handle food, they deliver packages, they operate or take mass transit, they clean homes/workplaces/restaurants, etc.

Looks like around 40% of the US work force has no paid sick leave:

https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/issues/2...

Damn, that's hard. In Germany we have six weeks per illness. Meaning you get up to six weeks for your broken leg, another six for arm and so on. Insurance to cover up to a year isn't to expensive neither if you start early. Sounds like paradise.

When you're health insurance is tied to your work, if you lost the ability to work, you are screwed. You will stop earning money, your savings will evaporate, then your health insurance will evaporate, and then you get destroyed by medical bills. This happened in me in 2006 after a bad bicycle accident.

And all of this is assuming the health insurance company doesn't weasel out of paying for your bills while you have insurance because of a clerical error you made when applying for health insurance in the first place.

All of this also assumes that you have thousands of dollars to pay for deductibles before your health insurance kicks in at all.

Most folks don't have paid time off when they are sick. Even if they do, they'll still get in trouble for attendance when they are sick - and those days are often limited to 5 per year.

The big issue is that nothing is required, with the big exception of FMLA. FMLA doesn't cover small places nor part-time employees, though, and it doesn't mean you'll be paid.

Many people cannot afford to go to the doctor either.

There is absolutely no safety net for people.

> The big issue is that nothing is required

The most populous state in the country requires a minimum of 3 days paid sick leave for employees: https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/Paid_Sick_Leave.htm

Employers cant legally prevent employees from using this time. But, given that low-income people have little ability to fight violations of the law, I'd hardly be surprised to hear that people are forced (or feel forced) to work while sick.

"If an employee does not have any accrued or available paid sick leave, however, (e.g., if the employee has already used all of his or her accrued and available paid sick leave under the employer’s policy, including as consistent with Labor Code section 233), and if the employee has an unscheduled absence that would otherwise violate the employer’s attendance policy, the paid sick leave law does not prohibit the employer from giving the employee an “occurrence” for such absence, even if the employee was actually sick and/or could have used paid sick leave for the absence if he or she had any such leave accrued. The paid sick leave law does not “protect” all time off taken by an employee for illness or related purposes; it “protects” only an employee’s accrued and available paid sick leave as specified in the statute."

Sure, and three days is pretty slim - its easy to be pretty sick for three days with a single occurrence of illness. But the above quote is just a wordy way of saying "you aren't entitled to more sick leave than the 3 days provided for by this law".

Federal law [0] says you cant be fired for taking up to 12 weeks off per year to take care of, among other things, "major illness" (understood to mean that it does not cover things like colds or flu, unless they require hospitalization). But, it also only applies to businesses with over 50 employees, so non-chain restaurants are unlikely to follow this law.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_and_Medical_Leave_Act_o...

Ok. But honestly, the other 69% of Americans that don't live in California don't get this. Not only that, but it can somehow vary by employer.

Other places simply have it for everyone, and a union negotiation won't take away the safety net, as it is a right. It can only add benefits to the minimum.

There's a fair number of state laws by now:

https://www.workplacefairness.org/paid-sick-leave

I haven't reviewed them all, but the ones I've looked at are pretty meager, ~40 hours a year (and often conditional on employer size), which won't do much other than take the edge off if you get more than a little sick.

are you being obtuse intentionally? in the usa the hospital will send you a bill, thst is often ruinous

It's pretty clear that he's stating Canada has a larger welfare net than in the US.

Take paid holiday. The US has no federal state minimum paid vacation. In Canada, it's 16-30 days.

Lots of people in America don't have sick leave. Lots of people in America can't afford treatment for illness until they have to go to the emergency room.

who is we exactly? just because you and your bubble do get healthcare and sick time doesn't "we" do.

https://www.uphelp.org/nearly-half-all-american-adults-are-u...

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