
Health Effects of Job Insecurity - joeyespo
https://wol.iza.org/articles/health-effects-of-job-insecurity/long
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enraged_camel
At least in the US, one of the primary reasons job insecurity causes severe
stress is that affordable health insurance that has reasonable coverage is
usually only possible through employment. The moment you lose your job and
your COBRA period runs out, you're at severe risk of financial catastrophe —
the stress from which can lead to further health problems!

This is why I strongly support Medicare For All. Massive cost savings at the
national level aside, it's a critical part of the equation for regaining our
collective sanity. Where I come from we have a saying: good health is the
greatest treasure. It's a prerequisite for achieving success and happiness.
Therefore we need a system where people don't constantly worry about crazy
medical bills, and don't forego basic practices like regular doctor visits
because they can't afford the co-pays.

~~~
pitaj
Single-payer is one option, but for those of us who don't trust the US federal
government to do it right, there is another option.

There are three main reasons employer-provided insurance is so popular:

\- The ACA failed Americans by resulting in drastically higher insurance plan
prices \- The ACA requires employers to provide health insurance \- A dollar
spent by your employer on health insurance is not subject to payroll taxes,
but individual plans are

Additionally, a secondary effect of employers covering the insurance costs of
their employees is that insurance is not subject to individual pricing
pressure, since most people don't even know the cost of their insurance.

To fix this, I propose the following:

\- Roll back the ACA, allow those with preexisting conditions to use medicare
or medicaid instead \- Provide tax benefits to people purchasing personal
healthcare plans \- Provide tax incentives for employers to transfer their
company coverage to the individual employees

~~~
lotsofpulp
The mandate to for health insurers to pay for healthcare for people with pre-
existing conditions caused higher health insurance premiums.

If you want to pay for it with medicare or medicaid, then taxes will go up
instead of health insurance premiums.

There's no free lunch, and there's nothing wrong with ACA other than not
forcing everyone onto healthcare.gov and eliminating employers from the
healthcare equation altogether. That, or just provide healthcare for everyone
via taxes. Either way, taxes/health insurance premiums, the cost is going to
be borne by everyone one way or the other.

~~~
scarface74
How many people both have a pre-existing condition and can afford insurance on
the private market? If you are part of a group insurance plan through a
company, they have _always_ been required to accept people with pre-existing
conditions at the same price.

~~~
lotsofpulp
The group’s total price, and hence per member price, would go up, at least for
the following year. There is no scenario where people can use more healthcare
and pay lease. The only solution is to spread it out over more people.

The only way to lower per member price is to have lower total costs, which
means restricting your pool of members to healthier lives, which nicely
coincide with cushy white collar jobs that can afford to offer benefits.

~~~
scarface74
That’s true. But it has nothing to do with the ACA as the parent post claims.
Insurance companies have _never_ been allowed to exclude people who are
eligible under their group plan.

~~~
lotsofpulp
My issue with the parent post was that I interpreted it as claiming the ACA
causing health insurance premiums to rise, to which I wanted to point out that
any legislation that would have resulted in more people getting healthcare
would have resulted in either higher insurance premiums or taxes. Therefore
it’s moot to complain that ACA caused one’s health insurance premiums to rise.

The only way to provide more healthcare for cheaper is to increase the supply
of labor, I.e. doctors and medicines.

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throwaway082729
It's a huge concern for someone who's been a temporary worker for 17 years. My
performance is usually in the top 3-5% but if I get laid off, I've to find a
job in less than 60 days or go back to my home country which means I can never
make any long-term decisions. Should I buy a house? Hmm maybe not since I
might have to sell it when market conditions are not right. How should I
invest my money? Keep everything in cash or invest in the stock market. I'm
sure this is true for every single employee on a H1-B working for FAANG
companies and patiently waiting for 10+ years. Now, the new immigration plan
is going to not take those waiting in line into consideration and is instead
going to make everyone wait in line again.

~~~
justfor1comment
I know a lot of people having the same problem. They make a tonne of money by
contributing to some of the best companies in the world. But they don't have
basic things like a house or a sofa or a dining table. Most even lease cars
for a few years, instead of buying them. All their belongings are such that
they can fit in a few carry on bags in case they have to urgently leave the
US.

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maxxxxx
No surprise there. Feeling secure is one of the basic needs of people. It’s
much easier to take risks if you have a fallback and don’t lose Berührung when
things go wrong

~~~
shoo
This can also be seen played out in the article's graphs comparing the impact
of job security versus the individual's employability. The negative mental
health impact of having no employment or insecure employment is somewhat
mitigated if one is employable -- defined as "being sure of getting an equally
good job".

> much easier to take risks if you have a fallback

i agree. if you are employable and can readily obtain a reasonable job, and
have resources to keep operating for a period without having work, it is far
easier to engage in riskier but potentially much more lucrative opportunities
for work (starting new businesses, taking on short-term contract work with
much higher rates than permanent salaries for the same role, etc)

here's another interesting side of it: employability as defined above is a
relative thing -- "being sure of getting an equally good job" [relative to
your current job] . Suppose you have somehow found a job that is particularly
good fit for you (perhaps it is very closely aligned with what you are
interested in, and there are few other opportunities for such work, or it pays
substantially above market rates given your skills and experience). You may be
far more stressed about the possibility of losing your unusually good job due
to how rare it is --- even though you may be highly employable in many other
jobs or markets that you perceive as less good. You may also be more likely to
put up with a large amount of stress and bullshit generated by your good job
in order to hold onto it

in comparison, someone who works for a job that may be objectively less good
(e.g. repetitive work, less pay, greater risk of physical injury) but is in a
market where there is a large amount of demand for similar work may be far
less stressed about the possibility of losing their job simply because in this
market they are highly employable and there aren't any particular above-market
benefits of working for any particular employer.

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code_duck
Myself I am experiencing the job effects of health insecurity, which I would
posit are much worse.

~~~
jvagner
Sorry to hear that, but you're right.

Add the two together, and boom. Worst case scenario.

~~~
code_duck
I’ve lost my ability to work and gotten reestablished twice in the last three
years. For about 4 months now I have felt ready to work again, but where do
you go from there? It’s not like you can just hop in and start doing it.

I’ve lost my professional skills, my contacts, my clients, my workspace. Still
working around feeling ill 40% of the time.

~~~
jvagner
Getting re-re-re-established undoubtedly seems daunting. You've explored
remote/contracting?

~~~
code_duck
I’m actually trying to get reestablished as a glassblower. It’s low pressure
and I can take days off as I see fit. I don’t feel right taking on the
responsibility of doing tech jobs for anyone. Unfortunately it’s very
difficult for me to share spaces with anyone, but at the same time, getting my
own place could be a bad choice. If my health goes wrong again, moving out is
a lot of effort and expense.

I have had a couple promising tech projects over the past few years, but lost
momentum and had to abandon them at various times.

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HillaryBriss
a really important effect to consider. once a whole sector's jobs are
outsourced to another country, the newly redundant workers not only have
income problems, but health and mental health problems. globalization's costs
are higher than predicted, especially in the US where healthcare is
inefficient and overpriced.

~~~
mjevans
I think this speaks more to a lack of a social safety net that actually works.

A better social safety net would ensure that everyone had:

    
    
        * a home (near their family unit's job(s))
        * a job suitable to talent/skills
        * education towards suitable jobs if out of work
        * good healthcare
        * good child/retired family care
        * a stable, inclusive, welcoming community

~~~
neilv
This is a good list. I'd change "talent/skills" to "skills/aspirations",
because we believe too much in talent (whether for being discouraged when all
it really needs is work, or for misplaced belief in our own innate merit).

~~~
mjevans
I'd maybe consider aptitudes and desires, it got a little muddled when I was
trying to fit it in to a bullet-point list short enough to not irk mobile
users. The lack of white-listed HTML / similar entities in formatting is a
rather limiting factor for clearly conveying information.

Ideally some combination of testing / recommending potential raw talent,
desired areas of work/interaction, and trainable job fields could be
considered and find a good fit where someone could form a positive component
of a larger and vibrant community. Also, ideally, automation owned by the
masses (we the people, via the government) could handle the tedious and
annoying tasks.

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vibrio
To me the story seems to be The Health Effects of unemployability.

~~~
chc
That seems like a distinction without difference unless your main goal is to
place blame for their problems rather than examine the effects and remedies
objectively.

~~~
vibrio
I see employability as a trait inherent to me. How I spend my time building my
skill set, growing and maintaining relationships, and honing my story is what
I see as my employability. I own it. It mitigates the risk from my choice to
work in a role that provides me with a high level of Job Insecurity.

I see job insecurity as something inherent to the company and/or role within a
company. Such as being at a small company which focuses on the development of
a novel technology and/or a product in an untested market. Investors and
strategy partners may not provide funding one day and -poof’- Job is gone. One
goal of my job to influence the investor and partners, but I don’t own it. I
make the choice to endure job insecurity because I believe in the strategy and
see it and an outsized opportunity. Also I've never had a 'secure job', but
I've assumed in most cases it is naive to believe ones job is secure, either
big company or small company. Stuff can happen quickly and arbitrarily. Just
what I've observed.

And based on the data in the OP study, I'd rather be employable and unemployed
than unemployable and employed. This is what drove my initial comment.

edit (add relevance to article)

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pkaye
I'm trying to understand those graphs. They mention those graphs are on a
scale of 0 to 100 but shows effects of 1 and 2. Is that considered a mild
effect?

