Archive for August, 2007

My story is one that I’m sure many American workers can relate to.  Although my story is that of frustration, fortunately it has required me to move forward with much perseverance.   

 I graduated high school in 1973, which was a year earlier than my scheduled 1974 graduation date.  At that time a student had the choice of doubling up in the junior year if you had enough credits to do so.  The high school I attended on Long Island, New York was extremely overcrowded so if students wanted to either graduate early or simply drop out, they were not missed or encouraged otherwise.  The school was segregated and divided into two schools, and also separated by blue collar white families while the other building educated the poor lower-class Latino population.    There were two guidance counselors for the two high school buildings, which made it impossible to develop a rapport with either counselor or receive any individual attention for direction in regard to future higher education plans.  Boys were persuaded to develop a trade like their fathers, and the girls were encouraged to pursue a career in cosmetology or obtain secretarial skills. The choices were very limited for both girls and boys, and most middle-class families looked forward to their sons and daughters graduating high school, and getting a job to contribute to the family finances.  

I went on to attend a one year secretarial, airline school in Glen Cove.  My parents did not approve, and refused to pay the $3000 tuition for me to attend the school. It was considered to be a waste of money for a girl to get higher education as she was expected to be married at an early age.  I worked in a supermarket as a cashier to pay the tuition, and commuted with my very old car for over an hour every day.  The school, “Grace Downs,” was also a boarding school, but I could not afford the extra tuition to live on campus so I was one of two girls who commuted.  My dream was to work for an airline as a stewardess so I could travel around the world.   There were classes in modeling, and charm, which was basically an overall training in how to be a young woman, and learn how to serve as a waitress on the plane, dress, walk, and speak.  The studies were focused on outside beauty rather than intelligence.  Many girls sadly thrived to catch a future husband, preferably a military student from the local Kent Military School, which was near the school in Glen Cove, New York. 

I graduated from this school in 1974, and was not able to obtain a job at any airline.  At the time there were many airline strikes, and a large turnover of major airlines.  Gasoline was also in limited supply, and you had to purchase gas on either odd/even days according to the number of your license plate.  My solution was to try to obtain a secretarial job, which I later did accomplish, however with the help of an employment agency that I had to pay a finders fee, which took the first 6 weeks of my already low salary.   I commuted over 50 miles a day, and received a weekly paycheck of $76 for a 40 hour week.   I later married my high school sweetheart at 19 years old.  Combined we earned about $200.00 per week before taxes, and rented an apartment of $250.00 per month.  During this time we managed to save for a deposit and closing cost on a home that we purchased for $29,990.00.  My husband worked as an electrician, and I as a typist in a factory that sold school supplies.  I stayed at this job for the next four years until I was pregnant with out first child in 1979.   

Having a mortgage of about $400.00 per month, taxes of $3000.00 per year, and a new baby required that I also get a job so I began my career as a Data Transcriber with the Internal Revenue Service working nights.  My husband worked days while I stayed home with our son, and then when I went to work for the night shift, (4:30-2:00am) he cared for our baby.  We usually passed one another in the driveway while he pulled up from work, and I pulled away quickly to get to work on time at 4:30 pm.  This went on for almost 20 years with regular seasonal lay-offs for the summer months, and three children later. I needed the required 20 weeks of working before a layoff to qualify for unemployment insurance, so when a lay-off would come before this time where I could not collect, then my husband had to find other jobs on the side to sustain our bills, and be able to keep our home from going into foreclosure.  

 If I did look for any work outside the home, I usually was not successful.  In spite of the fact that it is illegal to discriminate against working mothers, many office jobs did not want to hire me, because of my obligations to family, especially young children. Sadly I have not seen a change in this area as I recently interviewed for a minimum wage job at a supermarket, and was asked if my children were now grown, and if my responsibilities to family had ended.   Although the work at the I.R.S. was tedious and repetitive the work environment was entirely made up of working moms so management was somewhat family friendly when you had to take off for either children being sick or a husband not being home from work to watch the children.   It did come with a lot of stress as you were required to always maintain a high number of keystrokes per hour, and almost every woman developed severe carpal tunnel from the repetitive and fast typing that was mandated.  After almost 20 years of working for the government and the economic downsizing after the attack on the World Trade Center, hundreds of workers were let go in what they referred to as reduction in force employees in non work status. 

 Many of our jobs were outsourced to workers in places like Ogden, Utah, and Oklahoma where government employees worked for substantially lower salaries.  My husband also lost his job with a company that employed about 500 workers at a government testing lab as the economy fell after the tragedy of 9/11. 

 I needed to find a job that would pay at least $10.00 an hour, and my husband had to find a job that would pay enough to maintain health insurance for our family as well as provide enough income as he maintained the role of the major bread winner.  We went from an income of $79,000 to less than $40,000 per year, and that was only after taking one job after another that either did not pay well, provide insurance or eliminate either one of us from more lay-offs.  We exhausted our savings, 401K, lost our home to foreclosure, and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.  

 I later went to a training school to become a Credentialed Substance Abuse Counselor, where after working for a few months I was injured on the job working with high risk violent clients.  I have since had four surgeries to my knee, and have been part of the nightmare of Worker’s Compensation.  When a year passed trying to recover from my injuries I decided to go back to college at the age of 48.  My husband and I are now renters for many years going from one residence to another either because of landlord problems or non renewal of leases due to owners deciding to sell after we clean, repair and totally restore their deteriorating property.  

I am a senior at Stony Brook University pursuing a major in Women’s Studies for my Undergraduate degree.  I plan to go ahead to hopefully obtain my Master’s in Social Work/J.D. Law degree.  I will be well into my late 50’s by the time I finish where I will have to repay over $100,000 in student loan debt.   My hope is to have a better income than my $7.50 an hour present salary as a cashier at a local supermarket, and for my husband and I to be able to eventually again own a home. 

With the cost of houses now in the year 2007 this does not look like a reality. What is  most important to me is to be in a position to make a difference advocating for men, and especially women, so we have better opportunities available to attain “The American Dream,” and have the dignity to be able to not only care for ourselves, but also to be able to again care for our families. 

I left the finance industry nearly two years ago to buy a printer cartridge remanufacturing business. In the last 18 months, I have increased sales by 130% but am not satisfied with the work, so I’m in the process of selling the business and am interested in meeting other professionals and entrepreneurs.

August reports of the relative profitability of U.S. versus foreign automakers blame the cost for retirees continuing health care benefits for U.S. automakers’ plunge into red ink on their P/L scorecard.

Let’s put the auto manufacturing industry’s plight into perspective. Business Week observed in a July, 2004 report on the demise of airline retirees’ pension and health care benefits that “Traditional pensions — so-called “defined-benefit” plans — and retiree health insurance were once all but universal at large companies. Today experts can think of no major company that has instituted guaranteed pensions in the past decade. None of the companies that have become household names in recent times have them….”

Even before that, in August, 2003, the New York Times reported that “Health costs have been soaring for many employers. In other industries, businesses have generally passed along more and more of the costs to workers and retirees, if they maintain benefits at all. Not so in the auto industry, where union leaders have negotiated some of the most substantial medical benefits in the country for their members.” In the same article: “The Big Three automakers, which open contract talks with the United Auto Workers union on Wednesday, are making a bigger issue out of reducing medical costs than they have in years. But the union has staked out health insurance as untouchable. ”We’re not going to share costs,” said Ron Gettelfinger, the U.A.W. president, at a recent news briefing.”

Flash forward to July and August, 2007, and we find conditions worsening instead of improving. On August 5, a widely-carried Associated Press article on automakers’ new UAW negotiations stated that although “the domestic automakers have a lot they can do to become more efficient to reduce costs and close the profit gap with the Japanese automakers,” U.S automakers contend that “they have to erase a roughly $25 per hour labor cost gap with their Japanese competitors.” By some accounting magic that puts retiree health care costs in the same bucket as current employee labor costs, “the biggest chunk of that $25 the companies want to shave is in retiree health care.” The cold, hard financial numbers show that “Ford, Chrysler and GM lost a combined $15 billion last year. Although Ford and GM recently turned profits, they’re still losing money in North America.”

The equally cold but much squishier part of the calculation is just how big a part of that loss is really attributable to retiree health benefits. The automakers cite “a combined unfunded retiree health care obligation of about $90.5 billion, a staggering number that must be carried on their books and paid over the life of their employees. With far fewer retirees, the Japanese companies have much lower payments.” In the contract negotiations, “On the bargaining table is the domestic companies’ desire to reduce or get rid of that giant obligation, perhaps by funding a UAW-run trust that would pay retiree health care bills.” So the current and future retirees are caught in a game of “who do you trust?” between their employer and their union to keep promises about retirement health care benefits through a trust nobody’s willing to discuss just yet.

It doesn’t take much cause-and-effect logic to see where this problem can lead – where, in fact, it has been leading for a long time. Older workers, however valuable their experience and reliability may be, simply cost companies too much in benefits – particularly health benefits. So the trend of early retirement buy-outs and “lay offs” thinly disguising ageist cleansing of the workforce will continue to grow. It’s so easy to argue both perspectives on this situation because they both come to the same conclusion. For the senior employees, it’s plain unfair and financially damaging; for the corporations, it’s a short-term fix resulting in leadership decapitation, which, in the not so much longer-term, is also financially damaging.  

The solution to this lose-lose death-spiral is universal health coverage, government managed and funded by taxes on corporations and individuals at a rate that will likely equal fewer dollars than each is spending now on for-profit insurance companies’ health plans. Folks, let’s learn to read those spreadsheets and stop being brainwashed by the “kind, caring” insurance companies’ ads. That’s our money they’re spending on brainwashing us and buying influence among the legislators we elected. Imagine the efficiencies health care would realize if none of the money in it had to be wasted persuading us and our elected officials to believe the insurance companies’ self-serving lies. 

 Did You Pay $736,000 for Your Watch? No? Then you’re not a member of “Richistan.”

“America’s super-rich have returned to the days of the Roaring Twenties. As the rest of the country struggles to get by, a huge bubble of multi-millionaires lives almost in a parallel world. The rich now live in their own world of private education, private health care and gated mansions. They have their own schools and their own banks. They even travel apart — creating a booming industry of private jets and yachts. Their world now has a name, thanks to a new book by Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Frank which has dubbed it “Richistan.” There every dream can come true. But for the American Dream itself — which promises everyone can join the elite — the emergence of Richistan is a mixed blessing. “We in America are heading towards ‘developing nation’ levels of inequality. We would become like Brazil. What does that say about us? What does that say about America?” Frank said. …”

Click on link to read entire article

“Private-equity firms, which say they bring sorely needed financial discipline to poorly run companies, have been slashing costs and extracting profits at warp speed. As the cycle of buying and selling companies has intensified, life in the trenches can be unstable and traumatic.Private-equity firms, which say they bring sorely needed financial discipline to poorly run companies, have been slashing costs and extracting profits at warp speed. As the cycle of buying and selling companies has intensified, life in the trenches can be unstable and traumatic. …”

Click on link to read entire article

“Many health groups are giddy about the prospect of real national health care reform following the Democrats’ takeover of both congressional chambers. Taking this cue, front-runners for the Democratic presidential nomination prioritize health care reform and are, therefore, slowly divulging their plans. Recalling the Clintons’ efforts of 15 years ago, they perceive this as an opportunity to advance a Democratic “core value”: universal health care.
President Bush and Republican congressional members understandably have their own ideas regarding how to slow the increase in costs of health care, to insure more people, and (generally) to assist the system to “heal thyself.”
Getting health-care reform onto a “national agenda” is a vital first step to improving the health care of all Americans, but keeping it there is of far greater import. Thus, if it disastrously follows the political stream, the result will be yet another set of incremental policy changes that add more complexity and little improvement to a system in distress.
Using health-care reform as a means to test how the change of power in Congress will make a difference, or the promise of a presidential candidate, or how our checks and balances system works for the minority party is not what we need, if we are serious about health-care reform. So, let’s get serious. …”

Click on link to read entire article

If you own or work for a small business, health care is a major issue for you. A universal, government managed health care system is an issue on which small business owners and employees can partner for a win-win solution. The PRWeb Press Release Newswire reports on the results of a survey by SurePayroll, an online payroll service. The survey found that “most small business owners consider healthcare issues key in determining their vote for the 2008 presidential election, and are looking to the government to address the rising costs of providing plans.” Most small businesses “know the current healthcare situation can have major, negative economic effects, and are putting pressure on the government to find a solution.”

Other economic analyses reported by Physicians for a National Health Program suggest different routes to the same goal - a federally-managed universal health system. One view holds that big business (including the insurance company consortium, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) and the National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC), a non-profit coalition of businesses, consumer groups and unions) realizes that “We need some form of universal coverage that would be funded centrally by the government, but delivered privately through existing mechanisms like HMOs.” A report on “The Corporate Crime of Selling Private Health Insurance” notes that, for all the talk on Capital Hill about more accessible and affordable health care, only Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) “has introduced single payer legislation (HR 676) in Congress that would make it unlawful to sell private health insurance for benefits that are medically necessary.”

If both big and small businesses realize we need universal health insurance, and all of us who either have no insurance or have it only at our employer’s discretion realize we need universal health insurance … isn’t it time that more than one lone congressman understands the concept? At least, our elected officials should understand that, according to that SurePayroll survey, “75% of small business owners who currently offer their employees a healthcare plan consider healthcare ‘very important’ or ‘important’ in deciding their vote” in the 2008 elections.

Editor’s note: I’m just now reading last week’s Newsweek, and  saw this column by Jane Bryant Quinn. She exposes the fear-mongering myths about universal healthcare. And she’s not exactly known for being a radical socialist, either. Click on link to see entire story. 

“Prepare to be terrorized, shocked, scared out of your wits. No, not by jihadists or Dementors (you do read “Harry Potter,” right?), but by the evil threat of … universal health insurance! The more the presidential candidates talk it up, the wilder the warnings against it. Cover everyone? Wreck America? Do you know what care would cost? …

… I do agree that we can’t afford to cover everyone under the crazy health-care system we have now. We can’t even afford all the people we’re covering already, which is why we keep booting them out. But we have an excellent template for universal care right under our noses: good old American Medicare. When you think of reform, think ‘Medicare for all.’ …”

I’m getting sick and tired of this health care crisis. Isn’t that ironic? Fortunately, I love irony, so I feel enough energy and anger to continue the fight. Here’s the latest roundup of what’s-what, who’s-who, and what have they done for us lately:

What’s What – You can find comparisons of the Senate and House versions of the pending health care legislation in the New York Times here. Short story: The Senate bill helps children increasingly over five years, funding the increase in the federal health care program through increased tobacco taxes; the House bill helps many of the rest of us along with kids over ten years, funding the increase through higher tobacco taxes and reduced planned payments to for-profit HMOs that offer private Medicare coverage, while increasing subsidies to low-income Medicare beneficiaries for health care and stand-alone prescription drug coverage.

Who’s Who –Democratic and Republican Representatives voted generally along party lines to pass the House bill, which President Bush (motto: “Who cares?”) threatens to veto. David Lazarus of the San Francisco Chronicle (July 25) sets the page on fire with, “President Bush says he’ll veto any such legislation, warning that it would lead the nation ‘down the path to government-run health care for every American.’ Like that would be a bad thing. What’s particularly galling about Bush’s position is that it’s coming from a man who just underwent a colonoscopy performed at the taxpayer-funded, state-of-the-art medical facility at Camp David by an elite team of doctors from the taxpayer-funded National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md.” Read the rest of Lazarus’s argument on why government-run health care wouldn’t be such a bad thing for all of us here.

What have they done for us lately? – More has been done to us than for us, but you knew that. Highlights:

The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights reports (July12) that since 2001 the top five health insurers and their lobbying associations have contributed $3,395,896 to Governor Schwarzenegger, members of the California legislature, and political parties in California alone.

The Center for Policy and Budget Priorities states (August 1 revision), in comparing the House and Senate bills and the Bush administration’s health care budget proposals in 2006, “An analysis of the health-insurance tax proposals that the Bush Administration included in its budget last year, conducted by the very economist (Jonathan Gruber of M.I.T.) whose work on SCHIP crowd-out has been touted in recent weeks by HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt and conservative activists, found that 77 percent of the benefits under the Administration’s health tax proposals would go to people who already are insured.  This is more than double the crowd-out percentage under the House and Senate bills.  (Professor Gruber’s analysis of the Administration tax proposals also found that the net result of the [Bush administration’s] proposals would be to modestly increase the ranks of the uninsured, because a number of employers would respond by dropping coverage.)” [The italics are mine.] But wait, the CPBP’s research has also found that “In many such cases, particularly among the low-income families that the House and Senate bills target, the private insurance that is available to the family may contain significant gaps in the coverage it provides or may require large deductibles and cost-sharing charges that the family has difficulty affording.”  Thus, Professor Gruber explains that “although public programs suffer from significant crowd-out effects, they still constitute the most efficient way to cover more of the uninsured.”

Then there are the insidious ways big pharma and insurance affect us that you don’t notice until a hyper-vigilant person points out the little clues. Listen carefully to a drug company’s commercial – it will urge you to “ask your prescriber,” not your physician. What’s behind this? We know doctors are unhappy with insurance companies’ restrictions upon the quality of care they can deliver, and doctors know that for-profit insurance paperwork administration consumes 31 percent of our health costs. Surely you’ve noticed for years that “nurse practitioners” have become an increasing presence in doctors’ offices, as a cost-cutting measure – and I must observe that I have received excellent care from nurse practitioners. But have you noticed the growing number of “advanced registered nurse practitioners” at mini-clinics in retail stores with pharmacies? (See map of Minute Clinics in CVS stores around W. Palm Beach, Florida, an area with a large senior citizen population. Minute Clinic is just one example of this growing for-profit service industry.) Because this new certification allows nurses to prescribe drugs, some of the best nurses are leaving traditional nursing for this specialization. They can bill insurers and be reimbursed in the same way as physicians. So medical school applications fall, and there’s a shortage of traditional nurses. Big pharma and insurance are influencing medical professionals to “follow the money” to the most lucrative set of activities in their field – not caring for patients in a holistic manner, but prescribing drugs at the site where they can be dispensed, to the advantage of the retailer. What? You thought those in-store pharmacy clinics were there for your convenience?

The detrimental effects of our for-profit health insurance industry on this nation’s overall longevity and well-being has been convincingly documented. Only those in power who are more convinced by the green lining their pockets than by the black ink of objective research remain unconvinced that a federal health care program is the best solution.

The Associated Press reports on August 3 that the Senate vote (68-31) would, for the first time in Bush’s tenure, be enough to override a presidential veto of the Senate bill (which would then have to be reconciled with the more ambitious House bill) . The New York Times (August 1) quotes Republican governors calling Bush “oblivious to the political risks” of a veto. Political risks? Never mind that a veto is even more oblivious to the health risks of the electorate.

We need to remind our elected officials that WE elected them. Our taxes pay them and pay for their (federal program) health care. Let’s tell them what we want. Go on, write the email – click here.