Before Cadillac tax, my previous company paid 100% premium (regardless of number of dependents) for $10 co-pay and no co-insurance plan.
If you were a manager, they provided executive dental/vision plan. That plan just paid everything (even cosmetic things) up to $3000 per each family member for dental and $500 for vision.
However, with Cadillac tax, I believe most Tech companies changed Health benefit significantly.
Now, my previous and current company provide employees HSA (Health Spending Account) with certain allowance and increased co-pay, co-insurance and deductible significantly. However, budgeting and procedure were quite complicated to me and I just didnāt like it. Thus, we switched to my husband plan. I guess it is very typical plan with $20 co-pay, 20% co-insurance and out-of-pocket $1000 per each person.
In Singapore, government has wisely forcefully removed all pension scheme more than 25 years ago. The pension liability can bankrupt a nation with yearly budget surplus.
Without going into it, this is an area I do have some knowledge about. A lot of my clients are high tech firms and while some go cheap with the high deductible HSA plans since they are startups or want to be frugal while ramping up, the established ones HAVE to offer good benefits in order to compete for the best of the best employees. So employee contributions are low or nothing at least for the employee level (mostly young and single anyway so no huge families).
The company my husband works for pays 100% of medical and dental insurance. They are privately held and funded. It is administered by an insurance company that adds a layer of stupidness to it. However I donāt think anyone inside the company should be seeing my claims. Many decades ago I world for a company where the company bookkeeper handled insurance claims. No privacy.
When neither of our workplaces offered reasonable coverage for reasonable price we went outside for insurance. My chamber of commerce membership got us into a huge buying pool that provide significantly better insurance at a lower price.
I used to think teachers were underpaid. Iām sure there are some who are. Itās a great debate. Who in tech works less than 50 hours a week on a regular basis? Crunch times are often significantly more. Taking work home or grading papers is done in many industries. Teachers may have been at one time low paid with pensions/full medical meant to make up for it. Worst idea. Pay them decent salaries and benefits.
Cities can file for bankruptcy. Can school districts? If they can those pensions can be stripped. Not good for those lifetime teachers.
I was an early adopter of caller id because I had a boss who would think of something at 10pm and expect it done by morning. Not answering and turning off the answering machine became a way of life. Drove my hubby nuts. He thinks all calls should be answered except when heās mad at someone (me). I became very adept at side stepping where I was and why I didnāt have the answering machine on. When I had a job offer in hand I decided to find out what would happen if I didnāt side step. I said I was tired and didnāt want to work all night. I got fired. The unemployment office agreed that it was unfair and I got a āpaidā vacation before starting my new job.
Not so for cities or school districts. The State Supreme Court has created āthe California ruleā. Look it up.
Everyone is afraid to challenge it. Caplers is financially larger than our largest cities. Not one can afford to legally challenge them.
It was for this reason - they received a threatening letter from Calpers attorneys - that Vallejo did NOT jettison the safety workers pension obligations during bankruptcy. And, as a result, even with a reduced police force and closed fire stations, pension obligations suck up more than 50% of the annual, post bankruptcy budget here.
Even governor Brown is afraid to take on Calpers. He compromised with the two tier system a few years back.
Yes, actually I agree completelyā¦as long as we have some fair metrics to go by. I would fine with doing away with tenure, as I know that I work hard and do a good job. As all of you work hard and put in the 50/60+ hour weeks at your jobs, so do the majority of teachers I know, some in very tough environments, for very low pay (which I couldnāt take after a while)
However, there are some that talk only about how we should cut this pension or do away with that benefit for all the lazy teachersā¦without increasing salary in return, who would want to be a teacher? Only those who couldnāt do anything elseā¦and yes, Iāve seen a fair share of them as wellā¦
Oh, as a side note, yes I think it is a little too hard to fire teachers, but principals do have their ways to ānudgeā people outā¦my co-worker was assigned straight Algebra 11/12 classes (meaning the kids had all failed it for 3 or 4 years straight). He was my good friend, but I wouldnāt wish that schedule even on my worst enemy!
Low teacher pay is a very knotty issue. Teaching is a tough job but very, very important to society as a whole, whether one has kids or not. I donāt agree the low pay is fine because we seemingly has enough teachers to go by. I think the pieces in the total-compensation package are not entirely in the right places. As I said Iād love to double a teacherās pay but put in objective performance metrics in return.
Do charter schools go by the same rules? Do they pay more or less the same as publics? How about private schools?
I only interviewed for one charter school, in Oakland, back in 2009ā¦and didnāt get the job. Iām not quite sure about overall, but I know that particular charter paid lessā¦I think private schools also pay less in general, the flip side being you donāt have to put up with as many behavior issues. Charters should have more flexibility in terms of rulesā¦I met a teacher a while back who taught at American Indian Charter, and she said they made their kids do push ups and sit ups all the time as punishment.
Double the pay in exchange for performance metricsā¦where do I sign up? 
If I ever run for governor, remember to vote for me. 
According to Jack Ma, Founder of Alibaba, same for China. He couldnāt find a job after High School, so applies to attend a Teachersā College, and he is so bad academically that he is successful only after three tries. After six years of teaching, he starts Alibaba
You should seek Jack Ma for advice.
manch:
demand and supply.
You will never beat it.
Even in governmental supply restricted economies, a black market always develops. (legal and illegal) Thatās the power of unlimited human wants and limited resources to provide for those desires.
You can argue all you want, Universal healthcare is needed in this country.
Donāt confuse public employees with private ones. Teachers in the private sector are scrutinized triple than the public ones. They are let go in a minute but donāt dare to do that with a public teacher or a cop. They can shoot you in the middle of the street without any problem, the union will swear you were armed to your teeth or you were from ISIS.
There have been so many topics on this matter. For obvious reasons, what some people celebrate, you know, Yahoo! My property is appraised $100K more, it is not other than logically affecting other wannabe buyers. That people not earning enough are being displaced.
Perhaps $130K a year wonāt allow you to be accepted as an applicant for a home anywhere, who knows.
aināt coming any time soonā¦