>>>>>I am back at work today!
>>>>>
>>>>>For those who don't know....my surgeon said that he did not see any evidence of the cancer outside the prostate (yeah!!!).... so that is a very good thing!
>>>>>
>>>>>I am still very sore on the inside (from surgery), having really bad night sweats, and I have the normal problems associated with the surgery.... hopefully they will subside in time!!!
>>>>>
>>>>>We will see how it goes today. Have to get better cause I'm out of vacation and sick time now.... sigh....
>>>>>
>>>>>Oh well.... could be a LOT worse!!!! So, I'm thankful.
>>>>
>>>>You company? made you use your vacation time? to have surgery and recovery?
>>>
>>>I can use the Family Medical Leave time (FMLA), but during that time there is no pay..... YIKES!!! So, I decided to use up the vacation, sick time and personal time first, THEN come back to work if able.... so here I am!!
>>
>>And you are probably feeling better everyday, but I am sorry you had to use your vacation time. Here, companies have insurance that pays the wage of/for anyone who is off for medical reasons. After six weeks it diminishes to eighty percent, but most people are back to work after a week or two, so there is no loss of income to the household. Maybe it's part of our medicare system, so Kevin and Jake won't allow you to have it. :)
>
>Most good sized companies here have something similar. It's broken down into different types though: company sick days, then PTO, then accidental insurance, hospital confinement, cancer and critical illness coverage, short term disability, long term disability etc. It depends on each company what they want to provide their workers or offer their workers at reduced premiums. It is not universal, but that is because we do not have universal insurance (yet).

I suspect that universal goverment controlled insurance will force the independant insurance companies discontinue their poor quality performance. (Okay, Jake, you can jump in here and tell us how government coverage will kill independant private insurance companies.)