the old man

If my father were alive today there is no telling what he would have to say about the current state of affairs. He was a man who conserved things. He recycled leaves, grass clippings and coffee grounds in his garden. He didn’t demand the best of everything--just an adequate level of quality. He was sick a lot late in his life and he relied on the health care insurance provided by his employer, for which the company he worked continued to provide after he was retired and needed it the most. Again, in this instance, he wouldn’t have demanded the finest health care possible, just what was adequate.

Although he was a veteran of World War II and he knew what fascists were, he lived most of his adult life during the cold war, and he had a propensity for using the word “communist” to describe anyone with whom he disagreed. For him, that word covered right-wing dictators, conservative socialists, people who governed communist countries, political liberals, members of the government of the United States and various and sundry other people and institutions.

I read on Yahoo! recently that in 1991 (the year my father died), 80% of firms employing more than 1000 people extended their health care benefits to retirees. In 2003, the number had shrunk to 57%. Without having the benefit of the exact numbers, I would venture to guess that the largest percentage occurred since 2000, because eight percent of employers with a thousand or more workers said they had eliminated health care benefits for retirees in 2004 and another 11% said they would likely do it in 2005. The combined figures for 2004 and 2005 would indicate the numbers are increasing dramatically. My father would have called this “communism.” His son would use a different expression. I would call it “third world.”

Back in the early 1990s when health care insurance costs first started rising precipitously I was working for a manufacturing company and had frequent and daily conversations with our Director of Human Resources. He and I were both avid stock market players and we discussed our stock picks and also the economy in general. He told me on more than one occasion that the cost of our company’s health insurance was going up all the time just as it was for other companies and that it was inevitable the government would have to take over health care if companies like ours were to survive. It was like waging war and building infrastructure like roads and highways in that the cost was too much for private industry to bear and that it was only a matter of time before government would step forward and solve the problem. He wasn’t alone in his opinion. Practically everyone I spoke to on the subject felt the same way. He was older than I was and probably remembered that Harry Truman, when he was president, tried to nationalize the health insurance system.

Fast-forward several years to when the Clinton administration began to work towards a national health care insurance program. When we discussed it again, his reaction was that if government got involved in health care insurance, it would be a disaster. What had changed? Nothing really, it was just a sophisticated and well-executed advertising campaign by the health insurance industry that hid reality behind a slick and polished façade of fear.

My father would have called it “communism.” I would have called it deception.

Now, fast-forward to the present. The health care companies and the Republicans in congress won their battle against the Clinton administration and now we are back to where we were fifteen years ago, except now health care insurance is much more expensive and employers are giving up providing health care to their employees, and those that still provide it require their employees to bear more of the burden of cost.

Now, many of you might say that the problem is with the large companies who employ large numbers of workers. Those companies who have prospered by the sweat of their employees are cutting back on health care coverage they provide for their retirees and their active workers and, by the logic of many therein lies the crux of the problem. If those companies weren’t so quick to cut back and so unsympathetic to the needs of their workers and retirees, there would not be so much of a problem. However, in a competitive world and marketplace, it only makes logical sense for those large companies to cut back; to allow themselves to be on an equal footing with manufacturers in other countries. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t stay in business. In order to survive, they almost have to do what they are doing.

“There goes Jimbo,” you are probably saying, “Siding with the robber barons and big business again, as he always does.”

To which I answer, this is war. And war requires the organized effort of a central government. While our government seems content with waging war in Iraq and mobilizing world terrorism against us, the war against health care costs is one for which they apparently do not have the stomach to wage. The current administration and the grafters in congress are content to deplete our arsenal of cash until we no longer have the resources to fight the good fight, while touting the virtually-worthless Medicare prescription plan they recently enacted as the answer. They will not be happy until we have sunk lower than the lowest third world country.

My father would have called the current government response to the problem, “communism.” I would just call it chickenshit.

Of course, maybe the old man would have, too.