Yah know, all the fireworks on the Fourth must be to satiate our pyromania. Other than that there's not much left to celebrate.
jr
· 1 year ago
"As Federal civil servants, we take an oath of office by which we swear to support and defend the Corporations of the United States of America"-Republicans
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
Why would anyone buy life insurance through their companies anymore?
the very definition of the word INSURANCE is thrown out the window with corporate America. I've always thought of it (especially health insurance in this company) as mob graft... you pay us in case anything bad happens, but you just TRY and collect when something does... and we'll see if we need to actually help you out.
Insurance is something everyone needs (especially if you have a spouse or children)... a lawyer is what you need if you actually try and USE your insurance though.
I hope her husband's company gets enough bad press that they re-think their obligation... yes, its an obligation, he paid for it. How is it that a contractual obligation means nothing anymore?
MNUSA
· 1 year ago
Life insurance is usually offered as part of the benefits package. The employer pays for so much usually one or two times the employee's salary. The employee is then offered the opportunity to purchase additional insurance at an attractive group rate. The corporation doesn't make the decision whether or not there will be a payout - it's usually the insurance company the employer contracts with.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
true... but shouldn't it be the employer's obligation to inform you if something is required of you when they change from one insurer to another?
his employer didn't tell the couple that he needed to be in the office for one day for the policy to be valid.
that seems shady as hell to me... bordering on disgusting.
but, according to the law which happens to favor the corporations (be it employer OR insurance company), its legal.
disgusting, inhuman maybe, but legal.
kevinbgoode
· 1 year ago
And as you listen to the Republicans cry out that a vote for the Democrat will endorse a "redistribution of wealth," notice carefully that they never mention they've been redistributing wealth from working Americans into their own greedy, lazy pockets for a dozen years.
CDS2
· 1 year ago
"Greedy, Lazy"....what a bunch of crap ! In this country, all one needs to do is educate oneself, find a job (even if it's at McDonalds), excell in that job, use that excellence to find another better job, and enjoy the fruits of your labor. If you think the Republicans think any differently than that, you are sadly mistaken, and living in another world. Folks with your atitude will never excell.
unrepentant_expat
· 1 year ago
Bust your butt at a low paying job, get injured, disabled or killed, then be denied the benefits you've paid years for; and it's your own damn fault! You, lady are one cold dingbat!
CDS2
· 1 year ago
Hey Name Caller......You changed the subject from Insurance to 'redistributing the wealth' not me.
unrepentant_expat
· 1 year ago
Oh yeh. Where'd I do that? It seems you're cross-eyed as well.
CDS2
· 1 year ago
Please....read your post....you were not talking about Insurance ! You were talking drivel !
CDS2
· 1 year ago
Hey Unrepentant....Sorry buddy....I thought you were Kevin....you are right I am cross-eyed after just one 'silver bullit'. Sorry.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Crazy dog lady.
You don't look like much of a worker to me.
PeteWa
· 1 year ago
I like how CDS used to pretend to be a man.
kevinbgoode
· 1 year ago
And I think this article is a perfect example of Republican support of "redistributing the wealth" into their own pockets.
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
The subject is about accurate results within our economy and to suggest such a bogus result is laughable if not absurd.
kevinbgoode
· 1 year ago
I think it is the Republicans living in another world. Any human resources and business expert with one drop of honesty will readily admit that finding a good job has less to do with an excellent performance and more to do with your connections. That, my dear, is the unwritten code used for centuries to ensure purity of the elite economic classes, peppered with the snide remarks that the people in this country who actually produce work are just lazy for not depending on stock portfolios and government bailouts of investment bonds for their financial comfort.
I've certainly met enough artificially intelligent wealthy conservatives to know that most wouldn't pass a simple oral and written communication test - even though that requirement appears on nearly every job position in this country. Your own post is an excellent example of spelling issues, but I suppose simple attitude makes up for that deficiency. And yet they magically appear in their positions, often because they attend the same "church" as their supervisors, or screw the boss, or engage in deceitful manipulation of others. Why are Republicans so determined to oppose any civil rights legislation? It doesn't have anything to do with morality and all to do with defending their turf and their hold on power.
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
What total nonsense! Work hard at McDonald's and Boeing just might hire you if you make those burgers really well.
LOL...
CDS2
· 1 year ago
Right on Polly....no one has ever been successful by feedinjg at the trough. The only way to make it is to establish a work record and ethic that is of interest to employers. I started by caddying, then to a supermarket bagging grocerys, then to sales, then to marketing. I busted myass all the way.
rja4429
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the info on how to excell (sic) in this crapola environment the Repugnicants, with the help of the chickenshit Democrats in Congress, have made for us. Hey, girl, the Horatio Alger days are long gone. Horatio lived and wrote in an age of dime novels -- which we couldn't buy for $10 today ($30 for the hardcover). Ditto for the rest of our economy.
"Educate oneself"? You gotta be kiddin' at a time when George "no child left behind" Bush has done such a great job of undermining education, along with everything else in America and around the world. I wonder what kind of "education" McDonald's is offering?
And get over your thoughts that one might find the job of their dreams by way of hard work starting perhaps at the McDonald's level. I wonder, do they have Mickey D's in India? That's the only place I know of where one might find "job security" in today's world.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
or... be born to a wealthy family... rely on a legacy to get you into the best schools where you can excell at drinking yourself into a stupor (with a minor in mediocre studies)... after which your daddies buddies will pull strings to get you out of military service during a time of war.
from then on, its smooth sailing... as you head one oil company after another that can't find ANY oil in TEXAS and eventually is bought out by one of daddies cronies.
eventually, with hard drinking replacing the need for hard work, you might even wind up President of the United States!
your beloved chimp has turned the American dream into a Stephen King-like fairytale... on PCP.
.
MNUSA
· 1 year ago
When the Repubs whine about something - it's usually something they're guilty of. Redistribution of wealth - what else has the last eight years been about. They've taken the earnings of the working and middle class and distributed it to their oil and corporate backers. Not only that but the redistribution will go on for years. Will they ever have to account for looting the treasury?
unrepentant_expat
· 1 year ago
Michael Moore's documentary 'Sicko' is a film which if released in daily instalments could run perpetually and never be exhausted. It would before long be nauseatingly repetitious. ...no fault of the master Moore
vkobaya
· 1 year ago
incompetent leaders
They are not incompetent leaders. Politicians are very effective, corrupt crooks, highly competent in stealing the money of working people and giving it to the lazy, greedy, thieving, owners. As for working hard, the companies have no loyalty to their employees and won't reward hard work, rather see any loyalty or obligation to employees as liabilities that they will use their own paid politicians to escape. Hard working employees get the shaft. Lazy employees are the ones who are rewarded as at least they never put in the effort.
Don't expect the Democrats to be any different than the Republicans. Democrats get their campaign funds paid by the corporations the same as Republicans and owe their loyalty to the corporations.
July 4th, indeed. It's turned into a jingoistic, flag waving disaster for far too many.
Bush_Bites
· 1 year ago
Of course the Supreme Court won't do anything.
It's packed with Repubs now.
Hell, Roberts probably has half his investments in insurance companies.
PeteWa
· 1 year ago
the Supreme Court was packed with Repukes before, also. For as long as I can remember the SC has been composed of 7 Repuke appointees 2 Democratic appointees
For some reason, a whole hell of a lot of people never clued into this most obvious of facts... Maybe it's the "liberal" media's fault.
Rob Mule
· 1 year ago
America's problem? Corrupted post WWII leadership which corrupted mass communications, to name just one.. Fuel, the environment, the military/industrial/consumerist state and human rights are issues those corrupted leaders and their tools have minimized for 40 years and more. They are not going to give up and retreat behind the walls of their fortresses...they will do and say anything to claw for their imagined birthright...anything.
OlderAndWiser
· 1 year ago
Spherion Corporation? With 300,000 "employees"? Never heard of them. Of course, there are probably many, many "corporations" out there who hire temps out to companies; I saw this trend emerging in the 80s when BarclaysAmerican (where I worked at the time) hired about 50 temp programmers to convert a financial system they bought from Chrysler Corp. for their own use in vehicle financing.
Does anyone know exactly how many people out there are "employed" by temp agencies, or self-contract? It has to be in the 10s of millions by now. Instead of the 30 year job security many had back in the 40s, 50s and 60s, too many people now have nothing but job insecurity. Those now in their 70s and 80s are probably the last of the US population that ever got anything close to a square deal, with union help in most cases, from job benefits such as retirement, health care and death benefits. Of course, Rethugs and their followers don't think the ordinary worker deserves any of it, but they just love to make multi-millionaires out of failed executives.
The "profit motive" gone beserk in what is increasingly the Dark Ages for workers.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
the interesting thing (as a contract worker with the same company for 5 years now) is that when these large companies go through their rounds of firing (about every 6 months... even while the company's stock is going up), they pick EMPLOYEES... not contract workers.
in the end, the contract workers and upper management are going to be the only people at these companies.
all the while, like I said, stock keeps going up (even in THIS market), and they recently shelled out 15 billion to buy another company.
question, if the stock is going up... and you have cash on hand to spend 15 billion to buy another company... why are the firings considered 'cost cutting'??
something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the corporate work model in America.
.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
How can you make any substantive conclusion w/o knowing the terms of the contract? How many years did he have to work for the company for the policy to vest? Did he fail to mention a pre-condition? Did he refuse medical attention for a curable condition? You don't know shit about the details, and neither do I; yet you jump on the bandwagon...
lynchie
· 1 year ago
Fuck off, busboy.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
Yes, Dear.....
Southpaw
· 1 year ago
Having dealt with employee benefits in a large corporation for more than 30 years (and ensuring that every penny due a beneficiary was paid out) I agree with Busboy, there is a lot of missing information related to the disqualification of the claim.
ClayPotts
· 1 year ago
There is a Republican pocket at the bottom of every rat hole.
unrepentant_expat
· 1 year ago
"The pendulum has swung too far"
Yeh, it seems a lot of us here are on the receiving end of Eager Allen Poe's pendulum.
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
Unless and until the MSM gets with the program, our country will continue to support the corporate face to the detriment of the individual. If McCain gets wins the election this year, we will see a further slant toward the corporate world on the backs of the quickly disappearing Middle Class.
unrepentant_expat
· 1 year ago
A little something from 'Network' which seems to dovetail into the topic. And the MSM has done a lot more self serving since then...
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU...WILL...ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
clytemnestra
· 1 year ago
So the feds won't protect us, our congress won't protect us, the courts won't protect us and the laws don't protect us . . .
Welcome back to being a little drone for the company with no power.
Fireblazes(CheetohsandCatfood)
· 1 year ago
We become more and more the serfs and peasants of the rich ones daily. Not really owning our homes, not really owning our own deaths, we pay and pay on a facade of a promise only to have it taken back when we pass. Our lovers given slight recompense and the wall of royal silence.
MNUSA
· 1 year ago
It's been going on for centuries. The bulk of us work hard to ensure the wealth of the few. We're even still fighting their turf wars.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
What a bunch of lynch mob trainees; this was my reply to soundboy:
"How can you make any substantive conclusion w/o knowing the terms of the contract? How many years did he have to work for the company for the policy to vest? Did he fail to mention a pre-condition? Did he refuse medical attention for a curable condition? You don't know shit about the details, and neither do I; yet you jump on the bandwagon..."
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
Busboy,
Yes, we read you before when you commented to Soundboy_Jeff, so why bother to repeat again? If you want to disagree with many of the posters who are sick of the corporate take over of America, address that aspect and leave your comment to Jeff to stand on its own. .
Busboy
· 1 year ago
Why did the court turn down the wife's request for judgment?
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
The wife clearly had reason and justification to collect on her husbands life insurance policy. They paid into their policy and had grounds for collection.
For the Supreme Court to once again opt to support the FAR right's obligation to cater to the corporate creed shows the reason for a CHANGE OF PARTY in the presidency.
Busboy
· 1 year ago
The guy didn't abide by the policy. He failed to provide his wife her benefits. The written word on contracts always supercedes any oral assurance. Been there, done that. The words of the contract are the only thing in question. There is no mercy under the law.
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
no mercy under the law... unless you're a large corporation that is.
Polly_Tics
· 1 year ago
To answer your question, here is a section of the article not cited:
The story has played out often under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Designed to protect employee benefits, the law has been used by employers as a shield against suits.
Federal appeals courts, interpreting Supreme Court decisions dating to 1993, consistently have said companies that offer health, life and retirement benefits under ERISA cannot be sued for large amounts of money, or damages. Instead, they can be sued only for typically smaller sums such as Amschwand's insurance premiums.
Several federal judges have bemoaned the unfairness even as they have felt constrained to rule in favor of employers. ================================================
It is positively disgraceful that such a loophole exists! And to defend such a horror not to mention try NOT to change it, is shameful on all accounts!
shanobama
· 1 year ago
The only contract 'condition' the man failed to meet was he had to work ONE DAY to meet the new policy requirement. He asked repeatedly if he was in compliance, they did not tell him, and in fact reassured him his [policy was in order and his wife would get the benefits on the policy.
As the widow said, if he had known he could have gone in for one full day of work. All in all the case stinks.
My private 'health' insurance works in somewhat the samwe way. They raise the cost every year while cutting the benefits. This can be done at any time. In fact, I think insurance is the only entity that can change a signed contract at any time without the agreement of the signatory. Hardly fair. When I broke my hand last year, I thought I was covered for the first $500. Only to find my BCBS phased that out of my policy a couple of years ago. (Do I have time to READ the reams of stuff they send me, all in the most boring legalese possible, every year? Hell no) If I ask and they give me the wrong information, I still pay, right? Thats only f.a.i.r............hah
Soundboy_jeff_meanie
· 1 year ago
insurance definition: promise of reimbursement in the case of loss; paid to people or companies so concerned about hazards that they have made prepayments to an ... policy: written contract or certificate of insurance; "you should have read the small print on your policy" indemnity: protection against future loss
okay... the ONLY arguement you can possibly have here is that the wife is lying about not hearing from the company that her husband had to work ONE DAY for the policy to take effect.
the policy was in place BEFORE the company changed insurers...
the ONLY THING in question here is the law that even CONGRESS and JUDGES deems unfair.
are we calling them activist judges (as the right does whenever the judges read the laws AS WRITTEN?) no.... what we're saying (and congressmen, and judges that oversaw the case) is that the LAW is weighted PRO BUSINESS.
the law is such that they could only sue for what they paid... I don't know about you, but if you bougnt a life insurance policy and died WHILE IT WAS COVERING YOU... you'd expect it to be paid no matter if you signed the policy the day before or twenty years ago. ITS A CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION.
busboy, you constantly talk about your family... if you died and your life insurance wouldn't pay out to your spouse/benificiaries, is that fair? is that what you signed??
if you're going to argue "but he didn't work that one day".... if your life insurance company failed to tell your spouse that they needed a blood sample from you, until AFTER you died.... how would your wife feel? did she get what you paid for?
insurance is a game of chance. the insurance companies ALREADY won't cover you if you're a bad risk.... but if they DO cover you and you pay them for ONE DAY, tnen get hit by a meteor... are you really on the side of the insurance company?
main question, his employer switched insurance companies... most insurance companies look for reasons to drop people (I'm not grasping at straws... my partner was dropped for diabetes), do you really think the insurance company would have kept his policy going if his company didn't have enough invested to pay the full amount of the policy?
as for being a 'lynch mob trainee'.... I've been fucked over by enough insurance companies AND employers to know that if you give ANY EMPLOYER the benefit of the doubt, you're screwed.
times have changed since you've been in the workforce old man... my company is laying off people every 6 months... WHILE THEIR STOCK IS GOING UP. now, are they laying off contractors??? NO, only FULL employees... WHILE SHELLING OUT 15 BILLION TO BUY ANOTHER COMPANY.
should I trust them? I've been there six years, love my job... but they'll never hire me on.
should I trust them?
Busboy
· 1 year ago
Insurance companies will lie, cheat and steal to avoid meeting their contractual obligations. I know that, been thru that very recently and my attorney nailed one of them to the wall. When something's written in black and white and either side doesn't specifically perform, then a judge has no choice.
Hangtown Danile
· 1 year ago
Spherion Corp. Glad we are not with them... I just hope our Prudentual pays when the time comes.
Southpaw
· 1 year ago
The newspaper states "Spherion could have waived the one-day-of-work provision, as it did for other employees but not for Amschwand".
The unanswered question is why?
LawMichigander
· 1 year ago
Um the law does not totally bar recovery, these judges are dumb pricks. Obviously they could use equitable remedies to at least supply more than the value of premiums.
All Comments
the very definition of the word INSURANCE is thrown out the window with corporate America. I've always thought of it (especially health insurance in this company) as mob graft... you pay us in case anything bad happens, but you just TRY and collect when something does... and we'll see if we need to actually help you out.
Insurance is something everyone needs (especially if you have a spouse or children)... a lawyer is what you need if you actually try and USE your insurance though.
I hope her husband's company gets enough bad press that they re-think their obligation... yes, its an obligation, he paid for it. How is it that a contractual obligation means nothing anymore?
his employer didn't tell the couple that he needed to be in the office for one day for the policy to be valid.
that seems shady as hell to me... bordering on disgusting.
but, according to the law which happens to favor the corporations (be it employer OR insurance company), its legal.
disgusting, inhuman maybe, but legal.
You, lady are one cold dingbat!
You don't look like much of a worker to me.
I've certainly met enough artificially intelligent wealthy conservatives to know that most wouldn't pass a simple oral and written communication test - even though that requirement appears on nearly every job position in this country. Your own post is an excellent example of spelling issues, but I suppose simple attitude makes up for that deficiency. And yet they magically appear in their positions, often because they attend the same "church" as their supervisors, or screw the boss, or engage in deceitful manipulation of others. Why are Republicans so determined to oppose any civil rights legislation? It doesn't have anything to do with morality and all to do with defending their turf and their hold on power.
LOL...
"Educate oneself"? You gotta be kiddin' at a time when George "no child left behind" Bush has done such a great job of undermining education, along with everything else in America and around the world. I wonder what kind of "education" McDonald's is offering?
And get over your thoughts that one might find the job of their dreams by way of hard work starting perhaps at the McDonald's level. I wonder, do they have Mickey D's in India? That's the only place I know of where one might find "job security" in today's world.
from then on, its smooth sailing... as you head one oil company after another that can't find ANY oil in TEXAS and eventually is bought out by one of daddies cronies.
eventually, with hard drinking replacing the need for hard work, you might even wind up President of the United States!
your beloved chimp has turned the American dream into a Stephen King-like fairytale... on PCP.
.
They are not incompetent leaders. Politicians are very effective, corrupt crooks, highly competent in stealing the money of working people and giving it to the lazy, greedy, thieving, owners. As for working hard, the companies have no loyalty to their employees and won't reward hard work, rather see any loyalty or obligation to employees as liabilities that they will use their own paid politicians to escape. Hard working employees get the shaft. Lazy employees are the ones who are rewarded as at least they never put in the effort.
Don't expect the Democrats to be any different than the Republicans. Democrats get their campaign funds paid by the corporations the same as Republicans and owe their loyalty to the corporations.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/opinion/05her...
July 4th, indeed. It's turned into a jingoistic, flag waving disaster for far too many.
It's packed with Repubs now.
Hell, Roberts probably has half his investments in insurance companies.
For as long as I can remember the SC has been composed of
7 Repuke appointees
2 Democratic appointees
For some reason, a whole hell of a lot of people never clued into this most obvious of facts...
Maybe it's the "liberal" media's fault.
Fuel, the environment, the military/industrial/consumerist state and human rights are issues those corrupted leaders and their tools have minimized for 40 years and more.
They are not going to give up and retreat behind the walls of their fortresses...they will do and say anything to claw for their imagined birthright...anything.
Does anyone know exactly how many people out there are "employed" by temp agencies, or self-contract? It has to be in the 10s of millions by now. Instead of the 30 year job security many had back in the 40s, 50s and 60s, too many people now have nothing but job insecurity. Those now in their 70s and 80s are probably the last of the US population that ever got anything close to a square deal, with union help in most cases, from job benefits such as retirement, health care and death benefits. Of course, Rethugs and their followers don't think the ordinary worker deserves any of it, but they just love to make multi-millionaires out of failed executives.
The "profit motive" gone beserk in what is increasingly the Dark Ages for workers.
in the end, the contract workers and upper management are going to be the only people at these companies.
all the while, like I said, stock keeps going up (even in THIS market), and they recently shelled out 15 billion to buy another company.
question, if the stock is going up... and you have cash on hand to spend 15 billion to buy another company... why are the firings considered 'cost cutting'??
something is SERIOUSLY wrong with the corporate work model in America.
.
Yeh, it seems a lot of us here are on the receiving end of Eager Allen Poe's pendulum.
You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU...WILL...ATONE!
Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those *are* the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that . . . perfect world . . . in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel.
Welcome back to being a little drone for the company with no power.
"How can you make any substantive conclusion w/o knowing the terms of the contract? How many years did he have to work for the company for the policy to vest? Did he fail to mention a pre-condition? Did he refuse medical attention for a curable condition? You don't know shit about the details, and neither do I; yet you jump on the bandwagon..."
Yes, we read you before when you commented to Soundboy_Jeff, so why bother to repeat again? If you want to disagree with many of the posters who are sick of the corporate take over of America, address that aspect and leave your comment to Jeff to stand on its own.
.
For the Supreme Court to once again opt to support the FAR right's obligation to cater to the corporate creed shows the reason for a CHANGE OF PARTY in the presidency.
The story has played out often under the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act. Designed to protect employee benefits, the law has been used by employers as a shield against suits.
Federal appeals courts, interpreting Supreme Court decisions dating to 1993, consistently have said companies that offer health, life and retirement benefits under ERISA cannot be sued for large amounts of money, or damages. Instead, they can be sued only for typically smaller sums such as Amschwand's insurance premiums.
Several federal judges have bemoaned the unfairness even as they have felt constrained to rule in favor of employers.
================================================
It is positively disgraceful that such a loophole exists! And to defend such a horror not to mention try NOT to change it, is shameful on all accounts!
As the widow said, if he had known he could have gone in for one full day of work. All in all the case stinks.
My private 'health' insurance works in somewhat the samwe way. They raise the cost every year while cutting the benefits. This can be done at any time. In fact, I think insurance is the only entity that can change a signed contract at any time without the agreement of the signatory. Hardly fair.
When I broke my hand last year, I thought I was covered for the first $500. Only to find my BCBS phased that out of my policy a couple of years ago.
(Do I have time to READ the reams of stuff they send me, all in the most boring legalese possible, every year? Hell no) If I ask and they give me the wrong information, I still pay, right? Thats only f.a.i.r............hah
promise of reimbursement in the case of loss; paid to people or companies so concerned about hazards that they have made prepayments to an ...
policy: written contract or certificate of insurance; "you should have read the small print on your policy"
indemnity: protection against future loss
okay... the ONLY arguement you can possibly have here is that the wife is lying about not hearing from the company that her husband had to work ONE DAY for the policy to take effect.
the policy was in place BEFORE the company changed insurers...
the ONLY THING in question here is the law that even CONGRESS and JUDGES deems unfair.
are we calling them activist judges (as the right does whenever the judges read the laws AS WRITTEN?) no.... what we're saying (and congressmen, and judges that oversaw the case) is that the LAW is weighted PRO BUSINESS.
the law is such that they could only sue for what they paid... I don't know about you, but if you bougnt a life insurance policy and died WHILE IT WAS COVERING YOU... you'd expect it to be paid no matter if you signed the policy the day before or twenty years ago. ITS A CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION.
busboy, you constantly talk about your family... if you died and your life insurance wouldn't pay out to your spouse/benificiaries, is that fair? is that what you signed??
if you're going to argue "but he didn't work that one day".... if your life insurance company failed to tell your spouse that they needed a blood sample from you, until AFTER you died.... how would your wife feel? did she get what you paid for?
insurance is a game of chance. the insurance companies ALREADY won't cover you if you're a bad risk.... but if they DO cover you and you pay them for ONE DAY, tnen get hit by a meteor... are you really on the side of the insurance company?
main question, his employer switched insurance companies... most insurance companies look for reasons to drop people (I'm not grasping at straws... my partner was dropped for diabetes), do you really think the insurance company would have kept his policy going if his company didn't have enough invested to pay the full amount of the policy?
as for being a 'lynch mob trainee'.... I've been fucked over by enough insurance companies AND employers to know that if you give ANY EMPLOYER the benefit of the doubt, you're screwed.
times have changed since you've been in the workforce old man... my company is laying off people every 6 months... WHILE THEIR STOCK IS GOING UP. now, are they laying off contractors??? NO, only FULL employees... WHILE SHELLING OUT 15 BILLION TO BUY ANOTHER COMPANY.
should I trust them? I've been there six years, love my job... but they'll never hire me on.
should I trust them?
Glad we are not with them...
I just hope our Prudentual pays when the time comes.
The unanswered question is why?