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In My Opinion: A Nation of Health Care Haves and Have-Nots
In one of the mostly profoundly cynical, yet revealing, comments by a corporate robber baron, railroad tycoon Jay Gould, looking to break a strike in 1896, proclaimed: "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half."
In hyperbolic fashion, he meant that workers of the day were easily divided and ready to hire on as scabs to make an extra buck. That's the kind of "class warfare" the wealthy elites prefer.
I'd like to think that working people today are wiser and more ready to stick together to fight for our common interests, such as solving the health care crisis that is leaving growing millions of working families with onerous costs or no coverage at all.
However, I was disheartened by the reaction from many members of the public during our SBC bargaining struggle earlier this year. As we advertised that we were standing up against health care cost shifting by a profitable employer, quotes in news articles echoed many e-mails that I received from citizens, saying in effect - "I pay for my health care, why shouldn't you people too?"
Never mind that we are fighting to maintain benefit standards for everyone, and that organized labor is the leading force in calling for a national health care system. As fewer people have the good benefits that we still enjoy, some have become resentful.
And we're not likely to gain sympathy by the next bargaining round. Here's a stark fact: Today, for the first time in more than 40 years, the majority of all private sector employees have no coverage at work, reports the independent Labor Research Association. Only 45 percent participated in employer health plans in 2003, a drop from 52 percent in 2000 and 66 percent in 1990, according to Labor Department figures. (Among full-time workers only, coverage dropped from 76 percent in 1990 to 56 percent in 2003.)
From 2001 to 2003, that amounted to almost 9 million workers under age 65 who lost employer health benefits, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. Not all were counted among the rising number of uninsured because many became eligible for taxpayer-funded programs for low-income workers.
The number of Americans completely without health insurance coverage stood at 43.6 million in 2002, having jumped by 2.4 million in a single year.
Driving the crisis is a continuing surge of double-digit medical inflation. Employers do indeed face tremendous cost pressures - their average premiums ballooned from about $7,000 to $9,000 a year between 2001 and 2003, and are projected by the National Coalition on Health Care to hit $14,500 two years from now.
No wonder that in a recent poll, CWA members cited the worsening health care crisis as one of their two top concerns, second only to job outsourcing.
After battling to hold on to paid health premiums for active and retired workers in every sector - at employers like GE, Verizon, SBC, Lucent, the Boston Globe, US Airways, and now BellSouth –- our members get it. The pressure to hang on to our hard-won benefits will only intensify every year unless there is a national solution.
But nothing is likely to happen until we see a Democratic president in the White House. As I've cited, the most explosive rise in costs and sharpest drop in coverage in years has come since President Bush took office in 2001. Yet this administration has yet to tackle the issue - despite the fact that Republicans control the Congress.
On this issue, voters have a clear choice. An independent assessment of Democratic candidate John Kerry's health reform package and President Bush's election-year health proposals conducted by Emory University showed a clear bottom-line contrast: Kerry's plan would extend coverage to an additional 27 million Americans, Bush's, 2.4 million.
Kerry's plan would insure that every single child has health coverage through expanded funding of state programs. He proposes giving all Americans the chance to buy into the same health plan available to members of Congress, giving them more choices for lower costs, and tax credits would help individuals and small businesses buy into the program.
Most important, Kerry's plan would drive down health premiums by 10 percent through government "reinsurance" for private health plans, picking up 75 percent of catastrophic medical expenses that currently drive up costs for everyone. To control prescription drug costs, he would authorize the government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and he would allow for importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
Of course, Senator Kerry's plan costs more, and to pay for it he would roll back tax cuts for well-to-do Americans earning over $200,000 a year, which President Bush is loath to do.
In a land of health care haves and have-nots, that's a choice that will be central to this year's election - health versus wealth.
In hyperbolic fashion, he meant that workers of the day were easily divided and ready to hire on as scabs to make an extra buck. That's the kind of "class warfare" the wealthy elites prefer.
I'd like to think that working people today are wiser and more ready to stick together to fight for our common interests, such as solving the health care crisis that is leaving growing millions of working families with onerous costs or no coverage at all.
However, I was disheartened by the reaction from many members of the public during our SBC bargaining struggle earlier this year. As we advertised that we were standing up against health care cost shifting by a profitable employer, quotes in news articles echoed many e-mails that I received from citizens, saying in effect - "I pay for my health care, why shouldn't you people too?"
Never mind that we are fighting to maintain benefit standards for everyone, and that organized labor is the leading force in calling for a national health care system. As fewer people have the good benefits that we still enjoy, some have become resentful.
And we're not likely to gain sympathy by the next bargaining round. Here's a stark fact: Today, for the first time in more than 40 years, the majority of all private sector employees have no coverage at work, reports the independent Labor Research Association. Only 45 percent participated in employer health plans in 2003, a drop from 52 percent in 2000 and 66 percent in 1990, according to Labor Department figures. (Among full-time workers only, coverage dropped from 76 percent in 1990 to 56 percent in 2003.)
From 2001 to 2003, that amounted to almost 9 million workers under age 65 who lost employer health benefits, according to the Center for Studying Health System Change. Not all were counted among the rising number of uninsured because many became eligible for taxpayer-funded programs for low-income workers.
The number of Americans completely without health insurance coverage stood at 43.6 million in 2002, having jumped by 2.4 million in a single year.
Driving the crisis is a continuing surge of double-digit medical inflation. Employers do indeed face tremendous cost pressures - their average premiums ballooned from about $7,000 to $9,000 a year between 2001 and 2003, and are projected by the National Coalition on Health Care to hit $14,500 two years from now.
No wonder that in a recent poll, CWA members cited the worsening health care crisis as one of their two top concerns, second only to job outsourcing.
After battling to hold on to paid health premiums for active and retired workers in every sector - at employers like GE, Verizon, SBC, Lucent, the Boston Globe, US Airways, and now BellSouth –- our members get it. The pressure to hang on to our hard-won benefits will only intensify every year unless there is a national solution.
But nothing is likely to happen until we see a Democratic president in the White House. As I've cited, the most explosive rise in costs and sharpest drop in coverage in years has come since President Bush took office in 2001. Yet this administration has yet to tackle the issue - despite the fact that Republicans control the Congress.
On this issue, voters have a clear choice. An independent assessment of Democratic candidate John Kerry's health reform package and President Bush's election-year health proposals conducted by Emory University showed a clear bottom-line contrast: Kerry's plan would extend coverage to an additional 27 million Americans, Bush's, 2.4 million.
Kerry's plan would insure that every single child has health coverage through expanded funding of state programs. He proposes giving all Americans the chance to buy into the same health plan available to members of Congress, giving them more choices for lower costs, and tax credits would help individuals and small businesses buy into the program.
Most important, Kerry's plan would drive down health premiums by 10 percent through government "reinsurance" for private health plans, picking up 75 percent of catastrophic medical expenses that currently drive up costs for everyone. To control prescription drug costs, he would authorize the government to negotiate drug prices under Medicare, and he would allow for importation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada.
Of course, Senator Kerry's plan costs more, and to pay for it he would roll back tax cuts for well-to-do Americans earning over $200,000 a year, which President Bush is loath to do.
In a land of health care haves and have-nots, that's a choice that will be central to this year's election - health versus wealth.