Joined: May 18, 2006 Posts: 3964 Location: Minneapolis, MN
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:11 am Post subject: Re: GM cancels healthcare
Quote:
"I'm disappointed in the lifetime promise GM made to us," said John Fleming, 67, of Rochester Hills, a retired information system auditor. "We've been wiped off the books completely."
Fleming was among the shell-shocked GM retirees wondering about what they'd do next for health care, following the surprise announcement that is part of GM's latest cost-cutting plan.
If your 67 you sign up for Medicare. How hard is that?
Joined: Aug 11, 2005 Posts: 663 Location: Eastern NC
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:23 am Post subject: Re: GM cancels healthcare
Well said Smallpoxgirl. It looks like the health care corporation that happened to make cars decided that model was untenible. Apparently we can't afford all care for some, look for some (much less) care for all as the next model.
Anthem, try the model where noone checks on your wife and you can't sue if things don't go as you like. Next health care model up.
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:39 am Post subject: Re: GM cancels healthcare
Poor GM, it's so unfair to have to actually pay up on their agreements.
What you are forgetting is that the funds for the coverage are not coming from general revenue. They were funds, supposed contributed by both parties, set asside (invested) for this purpose.
There was no mystery to the costs, it's a pretty straightforward actuarial formula that clearly showed what needed to be input to accumulate the appropriate funds.
GM chose to not add their share. That is criminal as far as I'm concerned.
This is not some luxurious perk, the workers paid their share, for the coverage that both parties agreed to pay for.
emersonbiggins wrote:
kpeavey wrote:
emersonbiggins wrote:
GM should obviously cover occupational-related adverse health effects, but I see no reason that they should continue health insurance for those producing nothing for the company in return.
This was part of the pay/compensation package. They offered it, promoting long term employment. It was effective-GM had the benefit of a lifetime of dedicated labor from thousands of people. When it comes time to pay up, they skip out. BS in my opinion. I can see a lawsuit coming out of this. Papers are probably being filed as I type.
These contracts were written largely when GM held over a 50% market share, oil was $5 a barrel, and America had just put a man on the moon. In other words - completely different times.
If anything, I'm sure GM can declare (here I go mixing legalese again) force majeure on these contracts, basically stating that honoring them would, or rather, has, put GM in the dire financial situation that it now finds itself in.
It's obvious that something has to give, but these GM retirees should count themselves fortunate that they were able to, for their entire working lives, make far-above and beyond what someone with a similar skillset would make in today's marketplace. This reality check has been 50 years in coming.
_________________ Gravity is not a force, it is a boundary layer.
Everything is coincident.
Love: the state of suspended anticipation.
To get any appreciable distance from the Earth in
a sensible amount of time, you must lie.
Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 11:43 am Post subject: Re: GM cancels healthcare
Quote:
It's going to require a new paradigm in American health care though. It's going to require an earnest push to abandon high-tech medicine and rediscover affordable medicine. It's also going to require, I think, that we follow Shakespear's advice vis-a-via malpractice lawyers. The technophilic health care model that the US, and to a lesser extent Europe have been pursuing, really needs to come to an end, and this may be the kind of thing that finally motivates us to make it happen.
I agree 100% with SPGirl. As we speak, my 90-something father is in hospital and the dollars that are flowing to keep him alive stagger the mind. Money is no object in poking and prodding and dosing and drugging his tired old body. I keep asking the old man if he wants to THINK about declining this crazy money-is-no-object, what-new-device-can-we-try-next medical treatment and he's still sound in mind (if not in body) and says, "NO, dammit, I don't want to die."
Well, at some point, his number will be up. And he'll leave behind a staggering debt of medical care that probably tops $300,000 in the last 18 months.
I'm not sure whether there was a lifetime guarantee as part of a contract or not.
In the end, people who are retirees right now don't understand how good they had it - they, by fortune of birth date - lived through the fat part of the Peak Oil curve.
I have nothing else to say about this. _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Born.
Be fat.
Be unhealthy.
Smoke.
Drink heavy.
Watch TV 12 hours a day.
Be really fat.
Take 12 prescription meds for 20 years.
Cashmere puts in a 1 chit share of funding or more.
Then I'd like to opt out, please, and thank you very much. _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
GM chose to not add their share. That is criminal as far as I'm concerned.
This is not some luxurious perk, the workers paid their share, for the coverage that both parties agreed to pay for.
Interesting points. It sounds analogous to the SSI trust fund "lockbox" and other unfunded entitlements. _________________ "It's called the American Dream because you'd have to be asleep to believe it."
I have no retirement benefits at my job, although many of my coworkers do. I do not believe these benefits will be there when I am ready to retire. My retirement plan is a self sufficient homestead, close family and community, and local resources.
This is the main flaw with the privaticed healt care/pension system. It is impossible for todays workers to save in healt care/pension funds for tomorrows healt care/pension. As kpeavey says, those funds wont be worth much if anything tomorrow in a declining economy.
The only solution is that todays workers is paying for todays pension/healt care and tomorrows workers is paying for tomorrows pensions/healt care. It is de facto what takes place today also when looking at the actual flow of goods and services like healt care. It is todays working doctors who is producing the healt care and todays workers producing the goods retirees is consuming.
The whole idea a whole society/nation can save for tomorrows pension/healt care is plain wrong. No matter how much we save today, tomorrows workers must produce exactly the same amount of healt care services and the same amounts of food and other goods to be consumed tomorrow by tomorrows retirees. None of these things can we produce today and store for tomorrow.
The logical result of this is that we have a "pay as we go" system where todays workers is producing all the goods and services consumed by the whole society, and is taxed at a level where the retirees and healt care consuming portion of the population receives enough money to be able to buy their fair share of the goods/services produced.
GM should obviously cover occupational-related adverse health effects, but I see no reason that they should continue health insurance for those producing nothing for the company in return.
HHHmmm... This move should give GM some additional money to carry on a bit longer... until the majority of workers leave. _________________ "RRrrruuuunnnn!!!" ~Apocalypto
More changing the rules in the middle of the game. I see a pattern developing which is don't trust the rules or promises of the past. _________________ It's a cold cold world when a man has to pawn his shoes.
Everyone thinks health care is a growth sector right now. I've got to say, I don't see it.
Because you're not in the corporate side of it... _________________ Just look at us. Everything is backwards; everything is upside down. Doctors destory health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, governments destroy freedom, the major media destroy information and religions destroy spirituality.
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