LA Dodgers extends $0 contract for 6th time so player can keep health insurance

https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/dodgers-renew-contract-for-andrew-toles-maintaining-ex-players-insurance-while-treating-mental-health/amp/

by treyfitty • 2 years ago

38 42 2 years ago

cbssports.com

SubiculumCode3• 2 years ago

He was a great team mate and Dodger. Continue to wish the best for him.

treyfitty4• 2 years ago

You played for LA? How’d you pivot to tech? I feel like this could be such an amazing story.

swores• 2 years ago

Fans often have opinions on which players are good or bad teammates, I doubt their use of that word means they themselves were on the team (not that it's impossible, just very unlikely).

SubiculumCode3• 2 years ago

lol. oh yeah. from baseball to neuroscience. I got it all man

brianbreslin• 2 years ago

Does the MLB Players association provide lifetime health insurance the way NFL PA and NBA PA do after x years of tenure? It is quite unfortunate that he has to rely on the graciousness of a former employer to get medical care. Any ownership or leadership change and this could be in jeopardy.

ok_dad3• 2 years ago

Too bad America doesn’t have nationalized health insurance for everyone. The only argument against it that I can see is that people think standards of care will decrease. Decrease from what? From more people having insurance! They want some folks to be in dire straits so they can have cheaper health insurance, but any reasonable study shows that health care would cost less on single payer healthcare.

(I don’t care how unpopular this view is on hacker news, I stand by it. I’m ashamed sometimes that this forum is so harshly capitalist and thrives on grinding poor humans into proverbial paste, because otherwise everyone here is pretty kind and supportive of each other.)

pyuser5834• 2 years ago

Standards will almost certainly decrease, especially for people in top 60%. And possibly for everyone.

The argument in favor is financial. But anyone with halfway decent medical coverage - tech workers, government employees, retirees, union workers, etc, it’s almost certainly going to go down.

Part of the reason is that Americans do get pretty decent care when they can afford it.

I can tell you personal horror stories about my time in Europe and ex-Europe.

I’d say the real problem in America isn’t even payment - it’s how medical information is siloed and treated like proprietary data. Usually under the guise of patient privacy.

chankstein38• 2 years ago

Yeah I don't really get it either except that there's a whole basically half of the media that will do anything they can to demonize it. Our healthcare as it is now is atrocious. I wait a month for an appointment for a simple thing. I have a friend whose kid is special needs and he has been waiting for months for results of a genetics test that he's repeatedly been told they have but they keep rescheduling because "the results aren't ready yet."

It's costing him an arm a leg and his kid is not getting potentially important treatment because of it.

But I have heard endless talking points about how "You'll just wait until you die under a single payer" or that care will degrade. It's sad. I've had arguments with people about this and they can only repeat those talking points and pretend they have personal experience with people in other countries because some talking head on the radio told them "The Brits are always waiting for their healthcare some die before getting there"

I was part of these people a decade ago. I've grown a lot since then and the time there has become a huge learning experience because I now see how manipulated I was. I thought I was "informed" because I listened to these talking heads tell me what to think all day. Truth is, I feel more informed today. I learn from whatever comes up but everything comes through a lens of "This may be special interests manipulating me."

Anyway, yeah. Long story short, from my perspective at least, the people against it don't really know why they're against it. They've just been told to think that and they think that makes them informed. The reality is our healthcare system is trash and will bankrupt anyone but the richest people in the case of an emergency but a huge percentage of the US is against making it better because SOCIALISM.

rootusrootus4• 2 years ago

Too bad America doesn’t have nationalized health insurance for everyone.

What fraction of America has socialized health care already? Half, more or less? It doesn't seem like a big leap to go all-in.

giantg26• 2 years ago

It's an incredibly complex topic and probably off-topic for this article. For example, you could in fact have lower revenues at a provider even if everyone has insurance, if that insurance pays less than today's private insurance. There certainly could be cost savings under a single payer plan, but to what degree is highly dependent on the proposed system. It's worth noting that one of the main points of contention is how to fund such a system (who to tax, from what source, how much, etc).

treyfitty4• 2 years ago

As far as I know, MLB allows players to BUY into health insurance each year for life after 1 day of service. But this player was homeless, so I imagine he couldn’t buy much of anything.

TylerE3• 2 years ago

The MLB minimum salary in 2018 was $545,000.

treyfitty4• 2 years ago

I know this article isn’t tech related, but it relates to employment in general.

I’m torn between feeling sad that phenomenal people with rare abilities under terrible circumstances can’t get the most basic of care unless tied to an employer… on the other hand, I’m glad that there are organizations who care when they have 0 incentive to care.

I pray to work for a company that cares this much about their people. I’d be willing to take a 50% salary cut simply because money is an ends to achieving happiness- if that company cared this much about people, I’m sure they’d do other small things that ultimately brings me happiness.

giantg26• 2 years ago

"I’m glad that there are organizations who care when they have 0 incentive to care."

They have at least a little reason to care since sports are about popularity and being cold-heartedis not a recipe for popularity. I'd imagine they can also write off the cost as goodwill.

throw10920• 2 years ago

HN is not for either "tech" in general or "employment in general".

From the guidelines[1]:

What to Submit
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

This submission is extremely off-topic and I've flagged it. Please don't submit stuff like this here - it degrades the quality of the site.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dimator• 2 years ago

i'm sure this is intended as great PR and a nice story, but it just reflects the dystopia that is the uninsured/underinsured way of life in the US.

cft• 2 years ago

It also excludes a lot of people from entrepreneurial activity: if you are over 30 or have kids you better have health insurance, and thus work for a big corp instead of bootstrapping a small business. My SOs individual health ins policy went from $250/mo in 2014 to $1000/mo in 2023.

LudwigNagasena• 2 years ago

Can’t they just cover his health insurance without engaging in employment fraud?

michaelbuckbee• 2 years ago

In the scope of these things, this is pretty above board.

TylerE3• 2 years ago

How is it fraud?

How is this any different from “gardening leave”?

They’re not even paying him.

giantg26• 2 years ago

Is it really employment fraud? It seems the contract and terms would be pretty clear. Generally you have to knowingly misrepresent a fact for something to be fraud. It seems this is all out in the open.

alistairSH3• 2 years ago

He is listed on the team's restricted list. So, it's completely legal.

In MLB, the restricted list is a contract status where the player is still associated with the team but inactive (and the roster position is freed up to be filled). The player can be traded to another team, become active again, etc. This status can be used when a player has major legal or health issues (in this case, it's uncontrolled bipolar + schizophrenia).

LA Dodgers extends $0 contract for 6th time so player can keep health insurance

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