With the mill only running one shift and not even a full week, the Maintenance guys, who never use our break room, have started hanging out. Bored I guess, most the PM’s are done, they just sit there waiting for the whistle to summon them to a break down, so it seems.
The other day the conversation turned to health insurance reform (it is clearly not health care reform since all the conversation is about is health insurance not health care, or preventive care, or alternative care). A new topic for us since we all are covered by the union’s health insurance plan and most of us have subsidized coverage of our COBRA once we retire so this conversation isn’t really of great interest to us. Yeah, the District Business Rep keeps telling us that unless premium rates stop increasing at a rate much greater than inflation we will lose our coverage or at least lose our retiree coverage. But most of us figure this is just a scare tactic to get us to volunteer to write a letter or call our Senator. They even held a phone bank but from what I heard it was the same night as the big game and we all stayed home and watched the green and yellow battle the black and orange.
What got us started in the break room yesterday was the issue of taxes. Not the first time to visit this conversation during lunch. Half of us think taxes are too high and the other half thinks the government needs to spend more on rebuilding our economy and are not so concerned about the cost. Figuring the increase in productivity will more than pay for itself.
The opening salvo was fired by George the planner set up man. From his perspective we can’t afford another trillion dollars or so to pay for health insurance reform. Yes it’s a tragedy that our fellow citizens can’t afford to get treatment but why should we pay for it? Besides who knows how many illegal immigrants will get care if we do and to saddle our children with this payment is wrong.
Fred, the head honcho of PM’s had a different opinion. Fred’s perspective was if we don’t guarantee coverage for everyone then the hospitals will continue to pass the cost onto our union plans and we will all be dragged down.
George countered with the observation that if the non-union guys want union benefits they should join a union or form one at their worksite. Although under pressure from Fred, ceded the point that this was easier said than done, what with employers willing to spend more to defeat workers’ efforts to form unions than it would cost for a union contract. It’s akin to Lil’Abner running for mayor of Dogpatch against a Rockefeller or a Gates.
Jim, the Steward joined in at this juncture and pondered that unless something was done to stop premium increases no one would have adequate health insurance, that to have private companies driven by the demands of Wall Street investors determine how such a basic service as either health care or health insurance was delivered was unethical at best and immoral at worst. He pointed out that Joe, the little league coach who had a heart attack was forced into bankruptcy since his wife’s health insurance plan had no out of pocket maximum and was capped with a limit on life time benefits. This was wrong according to Jim. Likewise, the costs of health care aren’t being increased. In fact, if they keep a strong public option or expose these Wall Street firms to anti-trust exposure the total costs will go down. “Why does it matter”, he asked “who pays the bill?” Either we pay in terms of disguised costs, and cost shifting or we identify the true costs and pay them as a society. As much as I think all the Senators are corrupt elitists, I’d still rather trust my fate to them than the likes of the CEO’s who run this mill”, espoused Jim.
This of course generated an instant consensus. No matter how stupid we felt the elected officials were or no matter how corrupt, we experience daily the greed and short sightedness of the CEO’s and owners of the mill. It was beyond our collective imagination to even conceive that there was any group of people less caring, less qualified, and greedier than the CEO’s.
George, who had been instrumental in organizing the food bank for Joe after the heart attack was the first to ask the Steward for the leaflet with the phone number of our Senator, Fred followed as did I. It took less than 3 minutes to make the call and leave a message that I supported a public option and that if we weren’t forced to bargain for health insurance increases every year we might be able to demand better hours and working conditions. I, also through, in the observation that even when we succeeded in stopping the boss from shifting health insurance costs to us, it simply meant that they took the money from some place else which was usually the money they set aside to invest in new equipment.
So I guess it’s not that we can afford it or not afford it, rather it’s that we can’t afford not to. Our communities have been devastated by our employers disinvesting in our plants and then when they are no longer “competitive” and the boss has milked every last penny out of the equipment and us they close it and blame us for being greedy. The health insurance companies are operating under the same logic, profits first, people last.
As I understand it the Canadian companies don’t have this cost. I wonder why that wasn’t discussed when they charged them with receiving an unfair subsidy from the government?
