And as a FB employee gets private healthcare as a perk and would also get it in the US. The US comp is much higher than the UK's even taking into account healthcare.
It eventually runs out. The US healthcare system can eventually bankrupt you no matter how careful you are, if your health problems are serious enough.
It eventually runs out. Medical bankruptcy is pretty widespread in the US.
It eventually runs out. Medical bankruptcy is pretty widespread in the US.
Medical bankruptcy is indeed pretty widespread in the US, but not among people with Facebook or Google benefits, not even those with career-ending disabilities. You’re underestimating the inequality of benefits within the US.
Not a permanent work stoppage example, but here is one relevant anecdote: I have personal knowledge of someone who got severely crippled by a freak accident that would have made most Americans go bankrupt and never be able to work again, including a need for repeated brain surgery. His FAANG employer benefits paid for what he needed, and although he was permanently wheelchair bound, he was eventually even able to return to work part-time (of course not initially) because of how good their benefits are.
That's interesting. What's your data source showing this outcome?
Honestly, even the comp allows building savings so rapidly that it helps a lot even before considering the benefits - and one of the benefits, at least at Google, was by far the best 401(k) plan I’ve ever heard of, including allowing less common options in the law which most plans don’t want the administrative hassle of allowing, and lower expenses than retail investing. So personal wealth (and therefore defense against high medical bills) grows really fast at those companies, and then the benefits most allow the employees not to spend those savings on medical costs.
Dismiss my assertions if you like, since they indeed aren’t statistically proved. But I don’t think there’s likely to exist public statistical data either proving or disproving my claim, so assertions like mine are the best we have. Any private data that might exist with sufficiently tailored scope would be kept within the HR department of Facebook or Google, and I’ve never seen it.
I should also probably clarify that I’m talking about US technical or managerial/executive full-time employees and not, say, someone who works in a warehouse shipping Google Store phone purchases, or employees with a foreign comp and benefits package.
But answering you on the merits: it’s entirely possible, yes.
For example, what if sensible life choices include moving out of state to a place where there is less tech industry? Just changing jobs can interrupt healthcare and cause costs. And the process of switching providers is, in the experience of a friend with a family with complex healthcare needs, sometimes so kafkaesque it might not be worth the risk.
What if sensible life choices involve blowing the whistle or just being critical of the industry? Can you risk it?
What if sensible life choices mean wanting to substitute time so your partner can go back to work? Does their plan match yours for the benefits you’ve both come to rely on?
It’s not unusual at all for people in all sorts of situations and on all sorts of incomes to effectively end up tied to a job by the security of specific features of a workplace health plan.
Use your imagination before you just jump in and belittle an argument.
I do wonder if people in the particular FAANG bubbles are just too young and healthy to understand that healthcare plans aren’t just a tradeable, interchangeable perk: once you are really deeply using them, they can get a lot less interchangeable.
I have bought them on healthcare.gov, and I have received them from employer, and it all seems to be interchangeable from my experience over the last 10+ years.
> This comes across as quite rude, TBH.
Sorry if you saw it as rude, but I was politely asking from my perspective. It's normal to ask folks for evidence backing up their claim when you don't find it believable. How could I have asked my question in a more polite way?
> Use your imagination before you just jump in and belittle an argument.
I did. And I failed to come up with an explanation based on my decades of work experience. Healthcare has never chained me to a job even when I had health problems. Pretty much every company offers a healthcare plan. The only thing that ever concerned me was becoming unemployed.