[speaker002:] I work for one of the defense contractors out here actually it's it's not a defense contractor it's uh a federally funded research and development center
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] kind of like the Mitre Corporation only uh uh we work mainly with the Air Force in terms of satellites
[speaker001:] alright and um so um in other words your your bread and butter comes from the federal government
[speaker002:] the the government yes uh
[speaker001:] right so your your uh your life sort of follows it's flow
[speaker002:] that's correct
[speaker001:] so um how are the benefits set up are they set up like they are in the federal government or are they
[speaker002:] uh actually no um it turns out that uh we are a non profit organization so the the benefits are different um
[speaker001:] uh-huh
[speaker002:] I mean basically you get you know the the health care coverage uh one of the big pluses for this company was you would get um three weeks of vacation to start normally in California when you work for one of the defense contractors they give you three weeks to start but all of the companies shut down between Christmas and New Year's so you end up in essence only getting two weeks of voluntary vacation and one week of involuntary vacation is you want to look at it that way
[speaker001:] sure I see what you're saying
[speaker002:] uh where as in our uh for our company they did not have until very recently a plant shutdown between Christmas and New Year's uh the idea is that you've got the three weeks and you can take it whenever you want it
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] so that was a big plus benefit for this company
[speaker001:] and that's just recently been taken away from you
[speaker002:] uh well the past couple of years because of uh cut backs and and whatnot they uh basically have put down and told people that you either take a week of vacation between Christmas and New Year's or take a week of no pay
[speaker001:] um
[speaker002:] uh the it's up to you you have the choice and so the the company does shut down between Christmas and New Year's I don't believe that this is a long term solution that they're going to use but uh they have been doing it for the past couple of years and they may do it for a year or two more
[speaker001:] development yeah well um you say now you say you get your health benefits is this a one hundred percent coverage
[speaker002:] uh uh-huh no I don't think any of unless of course you go with an HMO
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] uh the thing is that they also do not have uh eye glass coverage so if you need eye glasses you're on your own uh they also do not provide uh well they do provide dental if you go with an HMO though you lose the um the choose choice of doctors if you take their you know they have one of these cafeteria plans so you you either choose the HMO or you choose the
[speaker001:] ability to choose um-hum
[speaker002:] um I guess blue cross and blue shield is who they have now and the idea there is that if you go with one of their associated doctors they'll pay eighty percent if you go with a non associated doctor they pay seventy percent
[speaker001:] um-hum um-hum
[speaker002:] so that that I have to admit I mean when I first started out you were covered completely and it was not a um an HMO type of thing I I when I first started out in engineering I worked for RCA back in the mid seventies and uh they just covered everything
[speaker001:] um-hum sure
[speaker002:] but uh you know I've watched this slowly erode erode erode until the point where now um I figure that the next thing is going to be uh you're going to have to pay big bucks and they're only going to pay cover certain certain uh diseases
[speaker001:] well that's it certainly looks the way things are headed right now if uh something isn't done at the I guess at the federal level or
[speaker002:] right yeah
[speaker001:] or something I don't know about this but it's uh I um worked for a number of years as support staff in law law firms in the Washington Area
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] and I kind of had exactly the same experience uh law the especially during the seventies and eighties law firms were just rolling in the money
[speaker002:] um-hum
[speaker001:] and uh it's a little bit less that way now the recession has even hurt a lot of the big law firms in this area but um
[speaker002:] uh-huh
[speaker001:] the result uh was during that period that not only did we get one hundred percent benefits in terms of health care and so forth but they were rather extravagant plans that we were party to with with uh full dental and
[speaker002:] huh
[speaker001:] uh you know optical stuff stuff for our eyes and uh and so forth and I have to confess I had a couple of real bad health scares during that time and found that it really came in handy the HMO idea
[speaker002:] uh-huh right wow
[speaker001:] appeared on the scene I guess in the mid eighties and I tried a couple of them out uh and in fact have eventually settled on one of them I've change jobs now but this the same HMO is still available in my current position and and um
[speaker002:] hum
[speaker001:] it's it's uh I the interesting thing they've done some interesting things with the HMO's in this area where you there are a number of doctors and you can choose amongst the doctors that are available in fact uh one of them that's run by Prudential has essentially signed up a bunch of private physicians in the the Washington Area