Health costs destroying our economy

Friday, April 14, 2006

James P. Hoffa

National health plan only way to protect workers and employers

Our nation is facing an urgent crisis. Companies, workers and all levels of our government have an equal stake in this fight. Our nation's health care system is broken. America must act now.

General Motors Corp. is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, and Delphi Corp. is already there, largely because of the amount of money they spend on health care for their employees.

GM spends more on health care for its workers than on steel for its cars. GM estimates that it spends $1,500 in health care costs for every car it produces. It paid out about $5.8 billion for health care in 2005. That competitive disadvantage largely explains why the Big Three automakers have eliminated or announced plans to eliminate nearly 140,000 jobs since 2000.

This problem is hitting all sectors of our economy.

Teamsters in Connecticut and Florida recently waged a six-week strike against Sikorsky Aircraft, a defense contractor that makes helicopters for the military. Sikorsky and its parent company, United Technologies Corp. (UTC), are tremendously successful companies in an industry that shows no signs of slowing down. UTC earned $3.2 billion in 2005. Its chief executive officer, George David, collected more than $53 million in total compensation in 2005.

But that did not stop Sikorsky from demanding that its 3,600 unionized workers pay twice as much for their health care co-payments in the first year of their contract and an additional 15 percent during the next two years.

The company said it was taking a stand because America's health care system is broken. Sikorsky claimed to want to teach its employees a lesson about how much health care costs.

But the workers at Sikorsky understand the health care crisis very well. They offered to give up signing bonuses and accept smaller wage increases to help pay for their health care. Sikorsky refused to consider this and wouldn't even communicate with members of Congress from both parties, who encouraged them to negotiate in good faith.

Don't punish workers

In another fight for affordable health care, Teamster sanitation workers in New York were forced to strike last week against the highly profitable Waste Management Inc. These workers have the fifth-most dangerous job in the country, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, contending with all kinds of deadly risks.

How are they repaid for keeping our neighborhoods clean and disease free? Waste Management is trying to gut their health care benefits -- the very people who need it the most.

Men and women who work hard and play by the rules should never face this dilemma. In 2005, America spent more than $2 trillion on health care, up from $916 billion in 1993. One out of every $5 spent in this country will be spent on health care. Those are dollars that could be spent on education, housing, food, savings, retirement investments, bridges, highways and roads. Pretty soon, America won't have money left for anything else.

Too many go unprotected

Despite these increases -- and maybe even because of them -- there are now more than 46 million Americans without insurance. That's over 15 percent of the population. In 2000, it was 39 million, and it was 31 million in 1987, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

America is spending more and more on health care to cover fewer and fewer people poorly.

Health care costs are destroying our nation's economic edge. The cards are stacked against American companies as they try to compete with low-cost, low-wage foreign producers.

The only real solution to this crisis is national health care. Meeting such a basic need should not force government budgets, companies and workers into the red. As the crisis grows, more and more Americans, workers and corporate leaders alike, are calling for government action.

We invite General Motors, Delphi, Sikorsky, UTC, Waste Management and other corporations to stop fighting against us and start fighting along side us. It's time for all Americans to join this fight for a country that rewards hard work and where working families don't have to choose between going to the doctor and paying the rent.