FMLA: Once again America is rather behind the times

[Swordfish]

Just kind of a wild, middle-of-the-road sort of idea, but: how would everyone feel about some sort of combined HSA/401k-esque savings account for maternity leave combined with an extension of the FMLA time?

Basically, make it a short term savings account (people can start contributing whenever they're working) that maybe can earn interest and/or have employer contributions. It could all be pre-tax, and withdrawl could be similar to a HSA, i.e., if you're using it for expenses up to a year after the birth, no penalty for withdrawl (basically, you have to provide a birth certificate and SSN for your tot), and there is a substantial tax penalty (I think it's 10% for existing HSAs) for withdrawing for other expenses. Basically a more open-ended HSA: if you spend the money before the pregnancy on anything pregnancy-related (doc visits, baby stuff) or use it any time after a year (no itemization with this time, I'd assum people would use it to replace lost wages).

Maybe allow optional conversion to an IRA at the end of the defined period, so the gov't gets their cut of the money.

This way, people who think that they might have kids in the future can sock away cash pre-tax, employers can contribute as an employment incentive, and people who aren't going to have kids don't get penalized money-wise. And if you extend out the FMLA protected time out to a year, it'd be a function of how much the parents saved and want to drain their account that drove when they came back to work.

i believe this has already been answered.

it is, apparently, barbaric and unprogressive to expect people to save money in preperation for having children, and the mere act of suggesting such a thing makes you a heartless republican who likes to start wars and drive big trucks.

Sometimes over babies and children under the age of two.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

because you have no control over where your premiums are going, either. so what's the difference?

Sure I do. They are going to my insurance company. If I don't like it, I can get a different one, or cancel it altogether. I can opt for numerous different plans with my current insurance company to optimize my premiums vs level of coverage. No one is forcing me.

it is your responsibility to generate your own income,

So no, it would not be ok to steal from my neighbors. Why is it ok for me to have someone in a government costume do so for me?

and all of you should have been contributing to a common fund which will pay you some sort of compensation when for some reason you are unable to be earning your 100.00 for a period of time allowing you to find another source of income.

That's a good idea. Is it OK for us to be forced to do it against our will? I posit no, and people call me a heartless idiot neanderthal, and call for my expulsion from the land of my birth (when they are being kind) Others posit yes. Thus the debate.

[Filippa Eilhart]

I take it you are also against any kind of taxes?

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I take it you are also against any kind of taxes?

You take it correctly.

[Filippa Eilhart]

fair enough ;)

[VigoTheCarpathian]

i believe this has already been answered.

it is, apparently, barbaric and unprogressive to expect people to save money in preperation for having children, and the mere act of suggesting such a thing makes you a heartless republican who likes to start wars and drive big trucks.

Sometimes over babies and children under the age of two.

Well, I was thinking that maybe making it easier and cheaper for people to save and prepare to have crotch droplings, while increasing the time one is legally allowed to take off under FMLA would be a decent solution for everyone.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that if there were some sort of financial requirement in order to have children, I wouldn't be on this earth, and most of the kids I know wouldn't be here either. My mom's been telling the wife and I for three years that "Money-wise, you can never afford to have kids, you just do and figure things out down the line". I know that we could probably afford to have kids, but we'd have to make some major lifestyle shifts that we don't currently want to make (cut out the travel, stop going out on the weekends, probably move closer to family). Most people don't think of kids as a financial decision (which can be good or bad, depending on their situation).

My wife and I always joke that we're becoming the smart couple in the intro to Idiocracy: "We can't have children now. With the way the stock market is, that would be irresponsible."

[Security Squish]

Just to play Devil's Advocate...

For those who are all about extended paid leave, would you be in favor of limits? Take my work which is dominated by young married women. Most of my coworkers have between 3-5 kids roughly a year or two apart, at any given monet 10% of the team is pregnant. My work policy is 9 weeks of paid leave per birth per family, with the option for more time with money comming out of PTO, that means that it is both paternity and maternity leave but if both parents work there it needs to be split however they want. Now My workplace would be crippled if leave was much longer because we can't hire replacements and temps are super expensive.

Also as a liscenced medical proffesional there is the real possibility that a person who has only worked 6-9 months out of 3 years may not be a safe and up to date practitioner. I'm all for leave but I feel that consitency is the refuge of small minds and exceptions can arise. I know patients don't like it when we are short staffed, and I know managers feel bad when they can't hire qualified new grads becasue there are no "open" positions. I'll happily take my 9 weeks when it comes but at some point my work ethic and responisibility I owe to the community would come into play more time off could be seen as selfish.

Have at me if you will, but I think common sense needs to be applied.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Have at me if you will, but I think common sense needs to be applied.

Tried it already. "Pay for your own damn kids and I'll pay for mine" = common sense = barbarism.

[Werthead]

Great, thanks. We haven't called you guys pinko commies or feelgoods.

Because you haven't got a leg to stand on. As I said, you're dissing something that provably works and considerably more 'extreme' versions of which work every day for hundreds of millions of people around the world without their economies imploding. Exactly the same as in the UHC debate.

The thing you're talking about, I believe that is called personal responsibility. I am a fan of it. You should be too.

I am all for personal responsbility, but as a citizen of a state, there is also the fact that the state has certain responsbilities as well. A state likes its people to have kids who grow up into happy tax-payers. The people of a state like there to be a larger pool of the younger generations coming up paying taxes to keep the country ticking over (the fact that I am unconvinced this mode of existence is sustainable into the future is for another thread). Therefore the state has to provide a means of supporting that younger generation coming up. Given the amounts of money involved versus GDP, the amount is not onerous. Nor is it inviting people to take the piss: three months' pay, yippee, that's worth having a kid for! Erm, then what? You go back to work and are relying on the previously mentioned personal responsibility and planning. So we're not talking about a solution, it's a buffer or a safety net.

As I said earlier, I agree the situation in some countries where the business has to shell out for marternity leave is not really sustainable or fair, and I was intrigued that the US answer to this to protect small businesses seems actually more sensible than the UK situation, where businesses on very tight finances can quite go into meltdown if a couple of their employees go on maternity leave. Some sort of national insurance back-up in that case seems like a good idea.

Have at me if you will, but I think common sense needs to be applied.

The 'problem', as has been repeatedly mentioned throughout the thread, is that several dozen countries have handled this situation for decades and somehow managed to survive. As with any job where you have to take a long period of time out, say for a serious injury, there is a need to be some retraining and re-acclimitisation upon returning to work. And in Lany's hypothetical situation, it's only three months, not six or more as is the law in many other countries, and if you are in a career profession you are probably going to be at least trying to stay on top of developments from home in any case.

BTW, I'm pretty sure that if there were some sort of financial requirement in order to have children, I wouldn't be on this earth, and most of the kids I know wouldn't be here either.

Word. If people only had kids if they could afford it, most people would not have kids, with the attendant social and economic problems that would cause. And of course for enormous numbers of people it's not planned in the first place, and if it is planned the planning can still go horrendously 'wrong': you end up having triplets instead of the one you were budgeting for, and due to this there are birthing complications that leave the mother unable to work for a lot longer than just three months, and hey presto your family finances are screwed for all of your planning, but hey, so what? The state can't help out because then where would that end? The hammer and sickle being raised over the White House! Or else some other vague-but-no-doubt dire consequence.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

Because you haven't got a leg to stand on. As I said, you're dissing something that provably works and considerably more 'extreme' versions of which work every day for hundreds of millions of people around the world without their economies imploding. Exactly the same as in the UHC debate.

Gotta call BS. Europe has different system, but no one has stated that the US system doesn't work (have they?). On the contrary, it apparently works better, as the US birthrate is higher than The EU, and we are not descending into chaos.

[Watcher]

Just to play Devil's Advocate...

For those who are all about extended paid leave, would you be in favor of limits? Take my work which is dominated by young married women. Most of my coworkers have between 3-5 kids roughly a year or two apart, at any given monet 10% of the team is pregnant. My work policy is 9 weeks of paid leave per birth per family, with the option for more time with money comming out of PTO, that means that it is both paternity and maternity leave but if both parents work there it needs to be split however they want. Now My workplace would be crippled if leave was much longer because we can't hire replacements and temps are super expensive.

Also as a liscenced medical proffesional there is the real possibility that a person who has only worked 6-9 months out of 3 years may not be a safe and up to date practitioner. I'm all for leave but I feel that consitency is the refuge of small minds and exceptions can arise. I know patients don't like it when we are short staffed, and I know managers feel bad when they can't hire qualified new grads becasue there are no "open" positions. I'll happily take my 9 weeks when it comes but at some point my work ethic and responisibility I owe to the community would come into play more time off could be seen as selfish.

Have at me if you will, but I think common sense needs to be applied.

Europe has already worked out these issues.

That said, I'm also sympathetic to this idea that businesses shouldn't really be having to cough up some or all of the money for maternity leave, especially a small, struggling independent business with say only three staffmembers which can be left in a lot of trouble by one of the staff going on maternity leave. It's a social issue - we want the population to expand and for the children to grow up, enter the workforce and start paying us back in taxes which will partially fund our retirements - so it seems to make sense that this should be covered by national insurance.

Most labor laws are only applied to companies larger then X many people, the number varies depending on what it is. It wouldn't be new to exempt businesses under 20 people, to pull a number out of a hat, from a rational paid FMLA.

Tried it already. "Pay for your own damn kids and I'll pay for mine" = common sense = barbarism.

But I'm already paying for your damn kids, it's why there is health insurance, to a public school system, tax exempt churches, parents get tax-exemptions, day care and head start programs are funded by tax dollars, its why the government already subsides TV, Radio and even Disneyland its all to help spread the costs which you are already doing. No one raises their kids on their own dime.

[Dornish]

How bout a compromise. Make it like unemployment, you get paid by the government but at a flat rate for everyone rather than maintaining your current pay. Honestly, if we're calling it an investment, does a kid from a poor family deserve any less than one from upperclass parents? Especially considering that it's far more reasonable to expect that the wealthy have money saved. Individual companies would be able then to provide additional funding as a benefit if they so chose. Seems a lot more fair to me than simply providing x leave with 100% pay.

[Watcher]

Gotta call BS. Europe has different system, but no one has stated that the US system doesn't work (have they?). On the contrary, it apparently works better, as the US birthrate is higher than The EU, and we are not descending into chaos.

I'm going BS on your BS, high birth rates does not indicted a better system. And it's arguable that we aren't descending into chaos because our system is so dysfunctional.

[zollo]

Gotta call BS. Europe has different system, but no one has stated that the US system doesn't work (have they?). On the contrary, it apparently works better, as the US birthrate is higher than The EU, and we are not descending into chaos.

So what are you saying? Our chaos is better than yours? Europe 1 - USA 0. Knew you'd come around.

[Werthead]

Gotta call BS. Europe has different system, but no one has stated that the US system doesn't work (have they?). On the contrary, it apparently works better, as the US birthrate is higher than The EU, and we are not descending into chaos.

Behold the OP:

The problem is that 12 weeks is UNPAID. I don't know a single person who could go 12 weeks without some sort of income. There really should be some sort of paid leave.

The USA having a higher birthrate is an interesting point. It would be interesting to look at studies to see if that is the result of different cultural/religious factors or simple economic ones.

Seems a lot more fair to me than simply providing x leave with 100% pay.

I did forget this point earlier on. Going by the several friends who've had children recently, none of them got 100% of their full wages either.

when you're talking about your "buffer or safety net" paid for by anyone BUT the individual savings of the people having children. I cringe when you mention an "national backup insurance plan".

Except that the people who are having children are paying for this as well, out of their taxes and NI contributions when they are at work before and after having children i.e. for the overwhelming majority of their working lives: under Lany's original idea of 3 months paid leave, it would take having four children, above the national average, to remove even just one of the 45-odd years they would spend of their lives at work.

[Security Squish]

The 'problem', as has been repeatedly mentioned throughout the thread, is that several dozen countries have handled this situation for decades and somehow managed to survive. As with any job where you have to take a long period of time out, say for a serious injury, there is a need to be some retraining and re-acclimitisation upon returning to work. And in Lany's hypothetical situation, it's only three months, not six or more as is the law in many other countries, and if you are in a career profession you are probably going to be at least trying to stay on top of developments from home in any case.

I haven't seen a specific mention of what to do with jobs that are left vacant at high volume for long periods of time say with young RNs, NPs, and PAs. I think there should be time off, just how much? I think jobs should be safe, but for how long? I agree with the premises but this thread is more of a fight between two extremes with no real world application. Should a hospital run at low staff levels for long periods of time? Should they hire more staff? Should jobs be safe long term? What happens to replacements? Before people say that hospitals should just hire more folks remember that we have a healthcare provider and RN shortage in the US, we don’t have enough people as it is and temps are 2-3 times as expensive.

Also you can't train at home for any of those jobs, that would be unsafe and states would not recognize it as valid. Retraining at work is effectively increasing the time that a job is unfilled since a trainee can not do the full job by definition. The quote you picked of mine does not really represent my whole post. I asked questions and brought up real concerns and was wondering what people thought of that. Questions like how this affect the cost would and quality of healthcare? Are some jobs more critical to society? Obviously our society thinks so because police can’t strike, but nurses can.

[Tormund Ukrainesbane]

I'm going BS on your BS, high birth rates does not indicted a better system. And it's arguable that we aren't descending into chaos because our system is so dysfunctional.

Show me the (objective, quantifiable) chaos resulting from not having paid maternity leave. Also, if subsidizing birth does not have quantifiable objectives and results, then it will be time to call it feelgood-progressive-hogwash with no place in government.

(For the record, I consider myself a centrist; fiscally conservative and socially liberal.)

That's centrism? Here I've been doing it the whole time, in a very very extreme way. I'm like the mountain dew commercial of centrism :D

[Werthead]

I haven't seen a specific mention of what to do with jobs that are left vacant at high volume for long periods of time say with young RNs, NPs, and PAs. I think there should be time off, just how much? I think jobs should be safe, but for how long? I agree with the premises but this thread is more of a fight between two extremes with no real world application. Should a hospital run at low staff levels for long periods of time? Should they hire more staff? Should jobs be safe long term? What happens to replacements? Before people say that hospitals should just hire more folks remember that we have a healthcare provider and RN shortage in the US, we don’t have enough people as it is and temps are 2-3 times as expensive.

This is where the cultural thing might come into play. In the UK there are vast numbers of temporary teachers and even health care specialists who move from post to post as needed and as temporary absences come up (and they certainly do not cost 2-3 times the same as permanant staff). Effectively, support systems are in place to deal with all of the concerns you raise. From what you are saying, the same support structure presumably does not exist, at least on the same scale, in the USA, and changing things to introduce such a structure would be monstrously complex and expensive. I've seen the same argument against UHC and greener living: you could 'fix' the situation (if you think it's a problem in the first place) but it's incredibly hard to do so due to the sheer weight and inertia of the bureaucracy that is already in place.

[IheartTesla]

Ugh...I am sick of these cart-horse arguments.

The bottom line is, just because the format for maternity leave works in the UK and some other countries doesnt mean it will in the US. The argument from birth rates should be applied thusly: we have a larger birth rate in the US, and therefore more person-hours will be lost here for giving similar leave times than in the US. This deficit has to be made up somehow - you cant just glibly assert that what works in the UK will in the US. If the answer is more taxes or fewer vacations for other members of the workforce, thats ok, but I would like to see such facts acknowledged at least.

Also, I dont want to bring up the unique snowflake argument. However....things have existed the way they have in the US for quite some time now. I wish people from other countries would at least take into account the fact some proposals (such as UHC) do require some changes in the way things are operated around here. Some resistance is understandable and I wish more sympathy is afforded people who show such resistance.

[Werthead]

Ugh...I am sick of these cart-horse arguments.

The bottom line is, just because the format for maternity leave works in the UK and some other countries doesnt mean it will in the US. The argument from birth rates should be applied thusly: we have a larger birth rate in the US, and therefore more person-hours will be lost here for giving similar leave times than in the US. This deficit has to be made up somehow - you cant just glibly assert that what works in the UK will in the US. If the answer is more taxes or fewer vacations for other members of the workforce, thats ok, but I would like to see such facts acknowledged at least.

Also, I dont want to bring up the unique snowflake argument. However....things have existed the way they have in the US for quite some time now. I wish people from other countries would at least take into account the fact some proposals (such as UHC) do require some changes in the way things are operated around here. Some resistance is understandable and I wish more sympathy is afforded people who show such resistance.

I acknowledged that point. Changing things is not easy and even harder when a lot of people don't think there is a problem in the first place. Also, trying to change things in the USA is a lot less like trying to change something in a much more centrally-administered country like the UK and is more akin to getting the entire EU to move as one (i.e. almost impossible on a timescale of less than generations).

Still, that doesn't mean you should not try. If the attitude of "Meh, it's too hard, it'll take too long and it's too expensive, let's not bother," was to carry the day in every argument, than nothing would ever change.