I heard they were ditching it and instead going to give us $2500/$5000 on Jan 1 to put towards purchasing health insurance from the state exchange. I went in the web to see how much that would cost and it's over $1800/ mo so that's not even 3 mos they'd be paying for.
Can anyone confirm if this is true?
Every 5 years I see all these skinny people disappear for a month. Give me a break. Get them out of here.
@zy isn’t wrong. Someone has to call a spade a spade.
@zy Ah yes, the time-honored solution to rising healthcare costs: blame coworkers’ waistlines and women who dare to have children. Forget the actual drivers of premiums—hospital pricing, pharma markups, administrative bloat—no, clearly the real villains are new moms and people who don’t meet your personal definition of ‘healthy.’ If the best contribution you can make to this discussion is ‘fire the fat people and moms,’ you’ve told us more about your character than about the company’s benefits.
@zy You are 100% spot on! This is so out of control. I know one woman that has been on 4 maternity leaves in 5 years, plus she has take sabbatical and a bunch of vacation. This is a travesty. I don't blame Schwab for wanting to crack down on that cr-p.
There are so many unhealthy fat fu--s around this company. For the sake of all of us that actually try to be healthy, I hope they trim out the people that are driving up our insurance costs. Also, I know people that have worked here for 5 years and have literally taken 4 maternity leaves in that time. Time to trim that sh-t out as well.
I’m pretty new here but astounded at the number of people with “medical accommodations”. Makes sense to me they’d go after healthcare costs, they seem to have a very unhealthy workforce based on medicals.
@xd Basically. Manage expenses, increase profits and disproportionately impact older workers. Targeting is illegal, but happens.
Are the so called leaders so heartless to lay off the people who had more medical expenses?
@a9 bro we are all anonymous, there is absolutely no reason to je-k off the crypt keeper here. We all know he was cognizant for like one month of his term.
Some on this discussion are missing a very important fact here. Medical plan expenses are tax deductible--including the employer paid medical portion. It's not in Schwab's best interest to eliminate a huge tax deduction like that. Businesses like Schwab need to maximize their tax deductions.
@mt HIPAA is supposed to protect medical information. We use Kaiser and UHC as managers. They have access to the fund and manage it. The information within is supposed to be confidential and likely is.
Then there's other information. The most egregious was the annual medical check up and HSA funding bonus. The information volunteered was not protected and anything learned might be used. There's also learned information. That includes age, sick days, things you tell coworkers and mangers, and the like. Zero protection. And we do use it.
The company self-insures. Every penny not paid is a penny added to our profits. It is just that simple. It is also part of the equation when we do layoff or constructively discharge. Is this person a cost? Will they be in the future?
Would HIPAA protect against Schwab knowing the medical expenses and services used even if they are self- insured. I am sure they would use that when laying off people.
@kd Too early to know. Workers comp is state. Obbb changed a lot for federal workers. Big change we might benefit from is employer provided child care. Now a 40% credit from 25% for the company.
Our s/ld programs are self-insured I believe, just like medical. If you go on disability there’s loads of paperwork and harassment. You can leverage sick time to make up shortfalls. The self insurance nature incentivizes getting rid of older employees.
You should never, ever disclose a medical condition. Ever. The old annual survey and health check was absolutely used against a few.
What about life, AD and D, short and long term disability?
Will they at least have workers comp?
They don't need talented people to work at Schwab
I heard that they are going to make everyone run a mile and if they can’t do it in under 10 minutes you get disqualified from benefits. I also heard that if someone gets pregnant they get kicked off the benefits plan.
A shocking number of people are acting busy for ten hours and not contributing at all.
A shocking number have 15 minutes of work, countless hours in meetings and are more productive.
And a shocking number ignore absurd inefficiencies that make quicker work impossible. Team ready to implement? Nope. Governance in three weeks. Then a change. Then review. Then freeze. Then reschedule because a regulation project stepped on your weekend. Idle for a few more weeks and can’t start phase two because of budget.
Companies don’t reward efficient work or smart work. Want to audit workers? Why not start with the managers, processes and systems? Shouldn’t they already know they’re broken?
They'd save more money by doing an extreme evaluation of the workforce and reducing those underperformers. Most teams could be cut by 1/3-1/2. A shocking number of people here doing 4-8 hours of actual work a week and coasting the rest of the time.
There was talk about something like this 10 years ago or so and Walt was highly supportive of employees getting their insurance from the exchanges.
Haven’t heard for this year, but companies are looking at ICHRAs (basically what OP is talking about). Part of a larger Heritage plan to keep ACA without subsidies.
@a5 Compete fo talent? In case you are living under a rock, the job market is terrible. Biden gave us the best economy in 40 years then Trump came in and ruined it in a couple of months then fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for not lying about the dismal job numbers.
@OP I don't believe there is a company out there the size of Schwab that had gotten rid of healthcare. They could consider making the employees pay more and them less
I call bullsh-t. The firm may be in a cost-cutting environment, but getting rid of healthcare? That’d immediately kneecap their ability to compete for talent in an already competitive market.