traveling's comments

See the means test here:

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/health/medical_cards_an...

Sounds comprehensive to you?

The income threshold is so low that only unemployed people qualify.

Ok I'm going to give you the country, it's Ireland.

Some medical card for the destitute exists but if you're working you don't qualify.

The whole medical system is a nightmare, but it's a very small country as well.

Call me overly cynical, but the future is looking even worse with ever increasing automation. There will most likely be a small elite of technocrats and wealthy while everybody else is living in shacks competing for whatever jobs are left.

Most single millenial guys that aren't in tech or another high paying career are already living in shared housing indefinetely if they're in a big city.

An excess of people having no purpose in society will result in such conditions unless there is a revolution and a technologically disadvantaged north korea where everybody has stuff to do suddenly doesn't look that bad anymore.

I don't want to dox myself, but you can probably guess which western European country doesn't. Healthcare isn't US level expensive there where you'll go bankrupt with any minor issue but still prohibitively expensive if you don't make much and break your arm for example, so it's somewhat essential.

A colleague of mine got diagnosed with a serious heart condition, was away for a month or so without sick pay, got fired as a result and went bankrupt from medical bills.

>I wonder why they do this. The $$$ savings for the lesser hours are peanuts given the low wages.

Managers and supervisors always work for achievements, which are usually made on the back of the lower rungs by saving money and increasing performance by any means necessary.

An unskilled operational role.

I worked for outsourcers before as well doing support type jobs. Bad pay, ever increasing performance pressure, no benefits (no sick pay or health insurance), so if you got sick you were shit out of luck and healthcare was prohibitively expensive. Private insurance was available of course but these were all angle shooting companies in the affordable range that are barely better than having no insurance at all. The gap to the 3rd world is quickly closing in a lot of places these days unfortunately. (and not in a good way)

This was in western Europe.

He made 2k a month with tips. I was not protected by any labor laws as I was a contractor and not an employee (their way to get around benefits and employee related regulations).

I'm also living in a first world country where costs of living are fairly expensive and where I don't have free housing (and food I presume), so I was living hand to mouth without health insurance.

Newsflash: Life sucks anywhere when you're poor and uneducated.

I worked as an independent Google contractor before for less than $11 an hour with very stringent rules, ever increasing performance requirements, no holidays, no sick pay, no nothing.

If you're poor and uneducated you're disposable dirt anywhere these days, even though people would like you to think otherwise and it's obviously even worse in 3rd world countries, where people looking for relatively unskilled jobs far outnumber available positions.