My boss, a classic egotistical boomer with thin skin, complained to me when one of our contractors dared to ask if they qualified for health insurance. He told me that “in his day no one worried about benefits.” Apparently they didn’t need health insurance because they “were young.”
He’s also been complaining about the cost of our company insurance, in part because my colleague and I both opted into higher cost plans. I have chronic pain and my colleague has ongoing healthcare requirements of his own. It clearly riles my boss that we each take care of our health by taking sick days as needed and use our health insurance that we pay $400+ per month for out of pocket. Of course, he is on Medicare and also has chronic illness.
I reminded him that when he was younger healthcare costs were much lower, and that companies offered much better benefit packages (in many cases). Employers subsidizing healthcare goes back to the 40s at least. Nowadays we get barebones benefits on top of salary stagnation and inflation.
He countered that employers could afford to cover healthcare then because “people were healthy.” Funny considering that my grandmother had the same chronic pain condition I do, and also had employer subsidized healthcare. Not to mention she got a pension.
My boss believes that younger generations are money and benefit obsessed. That we prioritize “lifestyle” over our career ambitions. Gee, I wonder why that is?