[anon9001]

This is the n'th tech company today that's made an announcement similar to this.

Even Disney is going to transport workers to abortion-legal states as needed as "health benefit".

It's certainly a perk and good on Google for this one, but we're headed to a dark place if your best shot at human rights is to retain employment by a big tech company.

[silisili]

One side of me applauds companies who truly do things they believe are right.

The jaded side of me wonders if some amount of companies figured it'd be cheaper to pay for an abortion than maternity leave and health insurance.

[BrandoElFollito]

I do not understand this comment (I am French, this may be a cultural/political thing)

Duo you mean that women who undergo abortion wild not do that if they had access to healthcare and maternity leave?

We have access to both and still have abortions. About 220k per year, which is about 30% of all pregnancies.

Either we have a dumb population that did not know what contraception is (we have sex ed all the time), or there are deeper reasons for this action which is never fun for a woman.

[silisili]

In the US, typically employers pay for most or all of your family's health insurance. Yes, it's absurd. Losing your job means losing your insurance.

US also has laws requiring up to 3 months of leave for having children.

So, if you have a child, the company must accept or pay for your leave, depending on policy, and their health insurance costs for you go up.

[anon9001]

I don't think non-Americans appreciate the complexity here.

To anyone unfamiliar with our health care system for typical employees:

Once a year, most companies have a "benefits training" session that explains this year's crazy health care situation. They're boring and I only go to the first one when I join a company.

But it's 2022 and we have youtube, so I found Ohio State's training in public: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjAWj0f6DAc

Anyone employed with benefits needs to have at least a vague understanding of everything in there or they're at financial risk.

So when you hear about contractors fighting to become employees so they have access to benefits, they're fighting for the opportunity to make these benefits elections.

I know plenty of people who design systems for a living that find getting their elections right to be confusing.

You'll notice that a big part of our health care cost mitigation is projecting expenses. It's like a prediction market where you can only lose less, but if you get it wrong you can lose a lot.

Fun!

[BrandoElFollito]

Our system is not that simple either.

- you have mandatory health insurance which is a percentage of your income

- you have an extra insurance (called mutuelle) which you may not have if you are not salaried (but that you get anyway), or it may be compulsory if you are salaried.

Doctors can be in one of the two groups: 1 or 2. 1 means that your costs are fixed and regulated by law. This is for instance 25€ for a general/family doctor visit. n% of this is reimbursed by the compulsory insurance, and the other one reimburses the rest. n depends on the medical act - for instance for the visit to the MD n=70.

The group 2 fixes their prices as they wish. This is usually for specialists (but not always, there are plenty of specialists that are in the group 1)

The extra insurance covers up to M times the regular cost. M depends on the act and on the insurance.

Generally speaking - the more serious the act, the more you are reimbursed. A heart operation will be free no matter what, but something simple may cost a lot (more that the extra coverage). It is very rare, though, to go over that extra coverage.

Dental is not covered very well - it is OK for small things but implants fo instance are notoriously expensibve (you may pay, say, 1000€ out of 6000€). So is optical (you can always get glasses for free but they will not be the best ones).

[karmakurtisaani]

That might be overly jaded. I think an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy is a loss for everyone involved, so it's a bit of a no-brainer for companies to offer this relocation.

[silisili]

I want to agree with you, and hope you're correct...but remember the job of actuaries and how they've worked in the past which is honestly rather depressing.

Specifically, Ford realizing it was cheaper to pay for crash lawsuits than making everyone's car safer in the days of rear end gas tanks.

[mattalex]

I think that's a little too jaded. Much more likely they do this now for brownie points and quietly kill the program as soon as nobody's looking.

You also have to keep in mind that the cost of onboarding a new developer is orders of magnitude more expensive than allowing a developer to relocate out of state or pay for a temporary trip there.

[npteljes]

It's certainly a good time for the company to step in, and look good, while not sacrificing much.

[imdan]

We're headed to a dark place.

[rybosome]

It’s happening. I think it’s going to get way worse than most people believe.

[bogota]

Yep. They have already started talking about reversing marriage rights and contraception as well. It’s funny that an unelected body is now going to destroy the US and revert things that are clearly the majority opinion of the population.

Im glad I have dual citizenship because It does feel like the next 4 years is going to be a very sharp downturn (socially) in the US.

[lamontcg]

Probably kiss the Affordable Care Act goodbye and head back to the dark ages of losing your insurance and having a preexisting condition means that you get denied treatment.

People keep focusing on what this all means to minorities, but if you're just an old white male and sick they'll let you die, too.

Cue the old Niemoller poem.

[blindmute]

If it's the majority opinion it should have no problem being passed in federal or state legislature

[rsynnott]

It would need to go through the house of reps, senate and president. The senate in particular is not representative of the majority.

[blindmute]

Hmmm, if it wouldn't pass the Senate then I guess a lot of states' constituents don't want this. Sounds like it's better left to a state by state basis.

[shadowgovt]

Congress should reflect the majority opinion of the population.

The maddening thing about this is these issues are all correctable by law, but most people (rightly, I think) don't believe the body with an 18% approval rating will successfully pass those laws.

[irrational]

I guess this could be one way Amazon could help solve its staffing woes. A perk of working at their warehouses is a free abortion.

[jabbany]

Given the recent news about them running out of people to hire... I wouldn't be so sure.

The cynical view is it might be better for them to keep up the supply of low skilled labor...

[stonewareslord]

> we're headed to a dark place if your best shot at human rights is to retain employment by a big tech company

But we're already here. We are in that dark place now. It's reality that if you work for big tech you get a perk this perk, and if not, you don't.

Edit: point being that we aren't heading to a bad place. Maybe we are heading to a worse place, but this has put a ton of people in a very bad place already.