Health-care costs targeted as cure for corporate ills

[Judi Lynn]

Health-care costs targeted as cure for corporate ills
As medical expenses soar, more companies are seeking to shift burden to individuals

By Greg Burns
Tribune senior correspondent
Published May 7, 2005


In a speech at the start of this year's Chicago Auto Show, General Motors Corp. Chairman Rick Wagoner mentioned his Cadillac brand three times, his Buick brand four times and health care a total of 31.

For months now, Wagoner and other GM executives have railed against the high cost of medicine in the United States, giving voice to an escalating problem at virtually every U.S. company.

As the automaker's problems mount, pressure is rising for a sharp cut in company-sponsored health coverage, which the United Auto Workers union appears certain to oppose. The brewing battle at this industrial icon is the most prominent example yet of the precarious state of benefits as expenses soar.

Medical services have become one of the fattest targets for corporate cost-cutters. From Delphi Corp. in the auto industry to bellwethers such as IBM Corp., companies are taking steps to shift health costs onto individuals. Motorola Inc. recently eliminated retiree health coverage for new hires. Even the famously generous benefits at a union stronghold like GM increasingly are being viewed as up for grabs, much to the dismay of workers and retirees who expected lifetime care.
(snip/...)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/jobs/news/chi-0505070147may07,1,7882713.story?coll=chi-classifiedjobs-hed
(Free registration is required)

[strategery blunder]

1. Why aren't these companies lobbying for universal health care?

Not only would they get rid of a huge expense, but they would be able to retain the productivity benefits of a healthy workforce.

Oh, that's right, government evil. Skyrocketing medical costs good. CEOs line pockets with skyrocketing insurance premiums. Greed doubleplusgood.:eyes::puke:

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

5. Big companies have big stock holdings...

In other big companies. Like insurance companies. That's why.

[AP]

25. Because then we'd have a happy, wealthy, mobile labor force that would...

...force companies to pay competitive wage rates which would cut into corporate profits.

[BadGimp]

29. bingo

and they ALL understand this - and they ALL agree

[saigon68]

2. SCREW THE GREEDY WORKERS

LET THEIR KIDS TEETH ROT AND FALL OUT </SARCASM>

[oscar111]

3. Universal healthcare: healthy workers: "to compete with EU, China"

far as i know both EU and China have free or mostly free dr's .

Thus, healthier workers, and so more productive ones. Healthier gooses lay better golden eggs.

"To be competitive", we need nationalized healthcare. A kind society {free dr's} is more able to compete than a cruel society { costly dr's for only the upper parts of society}.

What we have now is a cruel society. { 1OO OOO homeless/yr die from heat, cold, rat bites, hunger. 12 million hungry, slated to rise to 13 million under incoming bush budget cuts to food stamps }.

"to be competitive" we also need free college with a living allowance for all students. Societies that develop all their good brains are more able to compete.

Guaranteeing jobs for all would also drop much of the anxiety out of life for workers.. making them healthier { thus more productive }. Most anxiety is due to financial worries, as far as i have observed in the people around me.

guaranteed ss pensions at a good level would also cut anxiety,
1. anxiety felt by forty-somethings for their retired penniless parents
2. anxiety for ones own future, during one's pre-retirement years as well as after. So we need that also, "to stay competitive with EU and China".

To memorize, take it in life's order:
Healthcare - needed by infants

Education

Jobs for all

Pension

These are the key points of a good society -- sad that FDR could only get a weak pension plan.. while many West Euorpean societies got the whole kit 'n kaboodle. Like Sweden.

See my sig below for more on Jobs for All, a site advised by Harvard's Galbraith and Clintons Sec. of Labor.. Dr. Reich.

PS Side-effect of jobs for all --- ends street crime. Most all street crime -- muggers, burglars, carjackers --- due to jobless folks desperate for food and rent money. Not condoning it, just pointing out the cause. I cant condone it, but i do understand its cause.
And cure.

[saigon68]

4. Yes Sweden, Norway Denmark, etc have followed this Model

The Bush Criminals and their allies, along with a few DINOs will never EVER let this country slide into SOCIALISM.

[bobbieinok]

15. 'free college'....almost in Germany, rest of Europe

Europe has a much less individualist mind-set than the US.....much more of an idea that if I help you, I also help myself (because you are educated well enuff so you can have a job, pay taxes; you have insurance so you're healthy, you have money from the state to help raise your child(ren), etc)

but of course this is all 'evil godless socialism and therefore extremely un-American' /sarcasm

[fencesitter]

22. Was college free in California..

once upon a time in the seventies? I seem to remember someone moving to California to get free education after establioshing a residency.

[IChing]

23. Yes it was

Gov. Raygun ended that problem.

[mopinko]

27. vietnam

st ronnie said- if these dirty hippies had to pay to be here, they would be in class and not out causing trouble.
i believe the community collegs system is still free after establishng residency. it used to be 1 year. i think they may have raised that.
typical thug, shooting themselves in the foot cause they were aiming at their made up enemy.

[SoCalDem]

31. Our community college is NOT free, and the classes are rarely

available.. They have cut back and cut back, and more and more kids (and grown-ups too) have a hard time even GETTING the classes they really need, so they can transfer to a 4 yr college.. The downside of this is that in order to maintain insurability on parents' insurance they must be enrolled for a minimum of credits, so they often end up taking courses that they really do not want OR need, in order to maintain the required course load, and what USED to be a two-year ordeal, can easily stretch into 3 1/2 or MORE, until they manage to qualify for a transfer..Also, there are lots of courses now, that no longer "transfer", and must be RE-taken at the 4 yr school.. This is why debt is so huge these days.. a "four year" degree, can end up taking 6 years or more..

[mopinko]

33. how much longer

til this country has shot itself in the foot so many times it can no longer walk?
sorry for the outdated info. my brother lives in ca, and settled there after being stationed at fort ord during vietnam. the community colleges were still free then, tho the universities were charging tuition. still, he got a cheap education, and the state of ca got a dedicated special ed teacher. too bad they f'ed up the system. community colleges are one of the best investments ever made in this country. but they are being undermined everywhere.

[whistle]

6. Yep, corporate America wants to save big by....

...eliminating their burden to social security (6.2% on all wages of $90,000 or less), medical insurance benefits (typically 25% to 50% of premiums which run $400 to $800 per month) and private retirement benefits which often are matched to employee contributions. Other targets are medicare premiums, uniform allowances, employee meals, travel expenses, special tool provided, minimum wages, on and on and on.

[Judi Lynn]

7. Optimum for them would be Americans wear attractive hospital gowns

and stand around in a field after work, every evening, until it's time to walk back to work, to be repeated until we all drop in our tracks.

If they could force it, don't you think they would? I think they're definitely working on it, one step at a time.

[whistle]

8. Elimination of all organized worker representation, unions....

...workplace protections, overtime, holiday and vacation pay, yep, all evils of socialism and workplace communists and anarchists. My parents and their friends used to tell stories about such workplace persecutions back in the 1920's and 1930's. I really thought such attitudes and actions were a thing of the past in America, but it appears that these have been boiling under the surface all these decades, just waiting for the right time to erupt back into the capitalistic genre of worker exploitation and profit maximization.

[Sadie5]

9. Perhaps those highly paid

CEO's will want to give up those lavish bonuses to make sure the hard working folks of America get the insurance they need?

[DocSavage]

10. Have always

wondered how if the US institutes univerasal health care, a surgeon is told that he will no longer be making 600K per year but will be paid 150K. How about the employees at the hospital that will have to take a pay cut?

[Massacure]

12. The average specialist in the U.S. makes about 150k a year.

If I recall in Canada it is only about 80k, and in Britain it is 45k.

[Streetdoc270]

28. The average MD makes 150k a year

http://www.studentdoc.com/internal-medicine-salary.html

[FlaGranny]

13. After working my entire life,

I somehow can't bring myself to feel sorry for a $600K per year surgeon, when, for the past two years, I have been without medical insurance and have not even seen a GP. In a month I'll get Medicare. I've had to find ways to handle any problems on my own. You see, I have MS, and was no longer able to handle full-time work and therefore lost my coverage. There was no way I could afford $1000 a month for a continuation of my COBRA when it ran out, and I could not get coverage anywhere else due to my pre-existing condition. I doubt that any of the 35 or 45 million people in my shoes have much sympathy either. I will say, however, that I have a lot more sympathy for MDs than I have for CEOs.

[Bridget Burke]

16. Where are actual figures on MD salaries....

Here & in countries with different health care systems? Breakdowns by specialty would be useful. Also distinguish between US MD's in private practice & those working for HMO's. Please include Canada's system of single payer insurance--not "socialized" medicine. (I once knew a Canadian MD who explained that, in Canada, you paid more taxes--but you got a better society in return--fewer homeless, etc. He left his excellent position in Texas for a more excellent position back home--with no financial sacrifice, in fact.)

And how much money do hospitals/private practices now spend on administrative & clerical help to try & get the FUCKING insurance companies to pay up?

[mbperrin]

17. Actually, the US pays the highest dollars for health care per capita

in the world already, we just don't get the services. Bunches go into the pockets of leeches like HMP, PPO, and the whole other alphabet soup of middlemen who drain revenues from the system at the same time they're reducing services.

No evidence that universal service would affect the pay of individual docs or other specialists at all.

[leesa]

20. I don't know many specialists who make that kind of money.

Do you know that YOU pay more RIGHT NOW for government health care than most universal care countries citizens have to pay and you get nothing for it. They get 100% care. You, if you are insured, have to pay a private premium over and above your government cost.

Aren't we at least partly as smart as these socialists are?

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

34. if it's done right, the pay cuts would be mostly felt by the insurance

industry. Eliminating all the directors and administrators of the multitude of insurance bureaucracies that "manage" health care right now would be very cost effective. MKJ

[whistle]

30. We should not hold our collective breath.....

...action speaks louder than hope.

[entanglement]

11. Hey filthy-rich CEOs

why not ask your good ole boy Insurance / Medical industry buddies to have some shame and stop robbing people blind at your next Toga party?

[UpInArms]

14. this equates to an across-the-board

decrease in pay for employees.

I'd bet the farm that the CEO and other execs will retain all their medical benefits (along with their bloated compensation packages).

:argh:

[mbperrin]

18. Hmmm, maybe they should try building cars that people want?

Ah, hell, what am I thinkin'? They're not in the car business, they're in the "line my personal pockets" business!

[AnnInLa]

19. Heads up...Small Bus. Health Fairness Act of 2005

www.protectyourhealthcare.org

(I posted this in GD yesterday:)

Those of us who DO have health-care insurance are under threat of having many of our rights and benefits severely cut or eliminated altogether. H.R.525/S.406, entitled "Small Business Health "Fairness" Act of 2005, has many, many repuke sponsors, and I counted 10 Dem sponsors (damn.)

Go to www.protectyourhealthcare.org and click on your state to see specifics of which health care benefits/rights you will lose. Supposedly, this bill will benefit small businesses, but pardon me, bullshit. It benefits large health-care insurance companies.

A few years ago, many health-care ins companies instituted free mammograms as a preventative measure...well, guess what? Why do repukes hate women? Will the attack on the working class never end?

www.protectyourhealthcare.org

[Toots]

21. Good, I wish every large corporation would just stop supplying health care

insurance. If every corporation would just stop doing it the government would be forced to do the right thing and provide coverage for every single citizen. I am just afraid if it is done by small increments we are really going to pay through the nose. HMOs and Pharmacies will continue to reap large profits and give lots to Republicans.

[area51]

26. "If every corporation would just stop doing it ..."

"... the government would be forced to do the right thing and provide coverage for every single citizen."

Knowing this nazi govt., I fear not. Instead, all this govt. will do is create legislation for "personal healthcare accts.", (meaning we'd have to try to set $ aside for medical costs), thus shifting the burden to workers.

The big cos., ironically, are the ones w/the $$ to pressure/lobby congress to demand that we go to a system of universal healthcare, which someone in this thread has already mentioned would benefit them enormously, with healthier/more productive workers & lower costs for them.

[tom_paine]

24. Sure, nothing a little shitting on the Imperial Subjects wouldn't cure

Don't you know? In Third World Totalitarian Nations as Amerika is rapidly transforming itself into, screwing the weak is ALWAYS the answer.

Now that CEO can get that marble tiled million dollar floor for his THIRD house, not just the first two...

[mitchum]

32. Up against the wall with these corporate bloodsuckers!