“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they think are unnecessary”

Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by fsloth on Sunday March 22, 2015 @06:15AM (#9246240)

Weeel now. As an example Finland - while there is a fairly functional state paid health service, most affluent people take the health insurance anyway and go to private clinics for day-to-day needs to avoid the public queues. Most eployees have a compulsory medical coverage by the employers, which is a bought service from the private clinics. Thus the medical scene is a bit more complex than "state pays it all". It can require quite a bit of effort to get proper medical attention in the public side unless one is ill in a critical, easy-to-diagnose form. Best places in the world to have a cancer or such though, since the state pays most of the treatment (thus Breaking Bad creates quite strong cultural dissonance initially).

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Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by ptaipale on Sunday March 22, 2015 @08:40AM (#9246528)

In Finland, there's not really a compulsory medical coverage by employers. The only compulsory part is planning and processes to prevent work-related health hazards and harms, and to protect and advance workplace safety, ability to work and health. (See law 2001/1383)

So, some paperwork is mandatory, no actual health care.

The reason many employers voluntarily provide an actual health insurance (or simply reimburse private-sector medical costs directly) is that it is one of the few tax-free benefits that employers can give to people, so it works efficiently as an additional compensation. And of course, because employee absences are costly, it makes good sense to try to keep them in good health.

The public sector health care does practically nothing in terms of preventive health care for people between 25-65 and in employment (except for maternity-related things). This is left to employers.

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Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by fsloth on Sunday March 22, 2015 @11:08AM (#9246963)

"So, some paperwork is mandatory, no actual health care."

The way the law is brought to action is that the private clinics have specific service tiers which they offer to employers, of which even the basic one covers consultation by a general practitioner. The easiest way for employers to fulfill the letter of the law is to buy the service.

Which means that working adults seldom tend to the public services unless they are really ill, which means more business for the private clinics and increases the appeal of a health insurance (it's easier).

This is getting really obscure for this forum, but as a reference: The specific law is

https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2001/20011383

Which in google translate is

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=fi&tl=en&js=y&prev...

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Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by ptaipale on Sunday March 22, 2015 @02:57PM (#9247805)

I was founder in a SW startup, and those of us who had a <15 % minority share were technically employees for whom the mandatory services had to be arranged. What it meant was that there was a paper that the managing director had to sign, and some small amount of money to pay to KELA (the public insurer). There was no occupational doctor or care service assigned.

Yes, this is obscure for this forum (perhaps that's why some people downvoted the previous comment) but just for the note, in Finland the employer is not really required to buy any services from private clinics. The legal requirement is for existence of a preventive plan, and a specification for what other services the plan covers. It's okay by law if the coverage effectively evaluates to nil, and employees just are off to the public system's queue.

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Re:“So many people spend their working lives doing jobs they... by fsloth on Sunday March 22, 2015 @07:41PM (#9248722)

Ok, this is really obscure but thanks for the clarification :)

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