ThinkProgress Logo

Health

How California Proves That Obamacare Is Working

Illinois Bans Abstinence-Only Ed Because It Only Works In A 'Fantasy Land'

Five Egregious Examples Of How We Keep Shaming Teen Moms

Economy

Are Employees Abusing Sick Days For Summer Fun Or Are Employers The Real Culprit?

By Guest Blogger posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jul 12, 2012 at 6:04 pm

Our guest blogger is Joanna Venator, an Economic Policy Intern at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

A recent MSNBC article cited a poll from Monster.com that claims 8 percent of Americans frequently call in sick to enjoy the summer weather, 11 percent do so occasionally, and 30 percent have done so once or twice in their whole careers. The article builds these unrepresentative statistics into the claim that summer hooky is a widespread phenomenon affecting the productivity of businesses. But is that really the case?

The MSNBC article paints a picture of employees sloughing off work to instead work on their tans, but most employees who have access to sick days do not actually use them. Worker with access to five paid sick days on average use only 2.4 of those days. Half of workers with access to paid sick days do not even use any of them. So MSNBC’s portrayal of workers abusing the system is a gross exaggeration at best.

In fact, data from the National Partnership for Women and Families show that employees are more likely to be the victims of unfair sick leave policies than to abuse the sick days they do receive. Some 40 million workers do not have the ability to call out of work even while sick, never mind for a day at the beach. Four in ten private sector workers do not have access a single paid sick day, and the ratio reaches 80 percent for low-wage workers. One in five workers report losing their job or being threatened with losing their job for taking time off while sick.

By perpetuating this myth of rampant misuse of sick days, the article misleads readers and pulls attention away from the very real problems facing American workers. Workers without access to paid sick days are forced to choose between their livelihood and their health. Often, they choose to go into work sick, which is a loss for the employee, the productivity of the firm, and the health of the sick person’s coworkers and/or customers. The media’s focus should be on the millions of people who can’t take leave when they really need it, not on the non-existent ‘problem’ of summertime sick day abuse.

NEWS FLASH

Missouri Governor Vetoes Bill Permitting Employer To Deny Women Access To Birth Control | Gov. Jay Nixon (D-MO) vetoed a bill that would have allowed employers or health insurance providers to stop offering coverage for contraception, abortion, or sterilization if doing so violated their religious or moral convictions. The governor’s decision sets up a potential conflict with the Republican-dominated legislature that approved the bill by wide margins; the bill’s sponsor, state Sen. John Lamping (R), said he will work to override the veto in September. Nixon said he stopped the bill because “we want families making these decisions — not insurance companies.”

Related Posts

By Amanda Peterson Beadle on Jul 12, 2012 at 4:10 pm

Maine Governor: IRS Is Headed In The Direction Of Killing A Lot Of People

By Aviva Shen on Jul 12, 2012 at 3:07 pm

At a speech in Vermont today, Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) attempted to walk back his earlier comment calling the IRS “the new Gestapo.” He failed.

“What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated,” LePage said to Paul Heintz, a reporter from Burlington’s Seven Days at a fundraiser in Vermont. “Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad — yet.”

On Saturday, LePage said in his weekly radio address, “You must buy health insurance or pay the new Gestapo – the IRS.” After outcry from Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the governor released a statement partially backtracking his comments. On Wednesday, the head of the union representing IRS employees also demanded an apology for the insensitive remark, saying his rhetoric put federal employees in danger. But

LePage doubled down when confronted, even when Heintz pressed him:

HEINTZ: Do you have a sense of what the Gestapo actually did during World War II?

LEPAGE: Yeah. They killed a lot of people.

HEINTZ: So the IRS is headed in that direction? They’re headed in the direction of killing a lot of people?

LEPAGE: Yeah.

HEINTZ: Wait, are you serious?

Listen:

Update

LePage spokeswoman Adrienne Bennett said the governor’s “radio message that will be released on Friday will also include an apology for language that may have offended people.”

Economy

House Committee Votes To Take Food Stamps Away From Millions Of Low-Income Americans

By Zack Beauchamp posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jul 12, 2012 at 2:13 pm

Today, the House Agriculture Committee approved the final version of the 2012 farm bill, complete with its draconian cuts for families struggling to put food on the table. The proposed bill cuts $35 billion from the federal food and nutrition budget, about $16.5 billion of which come from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — more commonly known as SNAP or food stamps.

The cuts work by eliminating “categorical eligibility,” which provides assistance to families whose assets or income put them slightly above the technical line for SNAP eligibility. Repealing categorical eligibility means that between two and three million Americans will lose access to food stamps and roughly 280,000 children will drop out of their automatic enrollment in the free lunch program at school. So the House bill has anti-hunger advocates up in arms:

“With the economy being in such bad shape, depriving that many people of nutritional assistance is going to have a devastating effect,” said Eric Olsen, [Feeding Hunger]’s senior vice president of government relations and public policy.

One needs simply to look to the story of Dorothy Moon, a stay-at-home mother in Texas who depends on food stamps to feed her six children while her male partner looks for new work, to understand Olsen’s point. Of course, some in the GOP want to ignore “sob stories” about the plight of people who struggle to put food on the table.

SNAP assistance saved five million American from poverty in 2010 and halved the number of children in poverty in 2011.

NEWS FLASH

Growth In Health Care Spending Remains Low | National health expenditures — the total amount America spends on health care, combining both the public and private spheres — grew only 3.8 percent in May, according to a new report. That’s down from 4.2 percent in April, and about as low a growth rate as the country’s seen in the last 20 years. Furthermore, total health care expenditures have stabilized at around 18 percent of the economy since 2009. While it’s difficult to separate the effects of the recession and policy changes, there’s reason to believe the passage of health care reform — with its myriad reforms to how both government and private entities pay for health care — has had something to do with this.

Bachmann On Medicaid Expansion: ‘A Great Number Of Those People Already Have Health Insurance’

By Guest Blogger on Jul 12, 2012 at 10:57 am

Last night, Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) cautioned against Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, telling Fox’s Greta Van Susteren that “a great number” of the people who would be eligible for the expansion — many of whom live in conservative states that have pledged to deny the program — already have health insurance:

VAN SUSTEREN: But the people that are in this window. This 133 percent.

BACHMANN: If you make 133 percent above poverty.

VAN SUSTEREN: Those people, the thinking under Obamacare is that they would be covered by Medicaid expansion, right?

BACHMANN: But remember, it isn’t that all those people don’t have health insurance now. A great number of those people already have health insurance.

Watch it:


Under Obamacare, those people Bachmann cites would indeed be able to keep their health insurance if they have it. The Medicaid expansion — which the federal government will bankroll from 2014-2016 and then pay 90 percent of costs thereafter — is designed to incorporate those who do not yet have health insurance.

In fact, millions of newly eligible people would be denied coverage if various Republican governors make good on their promise to impede the Medicaid expansion. In Florida, for example, Republican Gov. Rick Scott has promised to reject the Medicaid expansion, denying 1 million new Floridians health insurance.

When pressed by Van Susteren on who would foot the bill for uncompensated care when an uninsured person “ends up in a serious car accident,” Bachmann dismissed the question. “That’s the example the president continues to give, but that’s a tiny percentage,” she argued. “The answer is to bring down the price of health care.”

In 2008, the federal government spent nearly $50 billion on uncompensated care, and the Medicaid expansion would ultimately bring down costs. The Urban Institute estimates that 21 to 45 states will save money by taking the Medicaid expansion, and doctors and hospitals wouldn’t be forced to foot the bill for uncompensated care.

– Steven Perlberg

How Americans Could Have Benefited From The $50 Million Republicans Spent Trying To Repeal Obamacare

By Annie-Rose Strasser on Jul 12, 2012 at 9:04 am

Republicans, who have called for budget cutbacks, wasted over $50 million trying and failing to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

The House GOP, by some estimates, spent up to 89 hours debating or voting on repeal of Obamacare. Though every effort has been fruitless, it’s cost a pretty penny. The Huffington Post calculates how much it would cost at just 80 hours of debate:

CBS’ Nancy Cordes reported Wednesday that Republicans’ many fruitless attempts at repealing the Affordable Care Act have taken up at least 80 hours of time on the House floor since 2010, amounting to two full work weeks. As the House, according to the Congressional Research Service, costs taxpayers $24 million a week to operate, those two weeks amounted to a total cost of approximately $48 million.

That $50 million spent blowing hot air could have provided subsidies for about 4,500 families of four in the exchanges, or one year of foodstamps for 31,131 people.

This is particularly ironic considering the GOP’s heated cries of “waste” about the Affordable Care Act, a law that is actually expected to reduce the deficit and help millions of Americans.

Switch to Mobile
ThinkProgress Signup Overlay Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress Skip and Continue to ThinkProgress

Sign Up