The somber realities of the recent health care reform bill continue to emerge, revealing the fingerprints of profit-hungry insurance and pharmaceutical giants all over it.
What workers face under the new plan is skimpy and inadequate coverage in the form of “exchanges,” while the big health care insurance, pharmaceutical, and medical equipment corporations get a massive handout that maximizes their profits.
Meanwhile, millions of workers and their families are to be left without adequate coverage. Under the new plan, a staggering 23 million people will remain uninsured. According to a recent Harvard study, this will translate into approximately 23,000 unnecessary deaths per year. Undocumented workers will be completely excluded from coverage.
On Wall Street: profits over health care
The details of the bill are becoming ominously clear. A newly discovered set of secret internal documents revealed that many major U.S. corporations are discussing the idea of eliminating health care coverage altogether in favor of simply paying the penalties of non-compliance with the bill.
Such a brash move by big corporations would have the effect of dismantling the employer-based system that has been in place since World War II. The move would push millions of employees into the newly formed government exchanges, which in fact will only cover about 60 percent of their health care costs, leaving families stuck with ruinous debt.
Up until now, fear of the anger of millions of corporate workers has restrained the bosses from attacking the current system. The new bill has created a window of opportunity for them to get rid of their employee health plans altogether.
Internal documents obtained give us an inside look at the devious plans that are being discussed behind the closed doors on Wall Street. Internal e-mails and memos recently obtained show that giants such as AT&T, John Deere, Verizon and Caterpillar are considering “pay rather than play.”
U.S. Congress: nothing but a talk shop
In response, the congressional House Energy and Commerce Committee, headed up by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) demanded that the big corporations turn over their confidential memos and summoned top executives for hearings on the matter.
But once 1,100 pages of memos from four major corporations were submitted, the congressional committee abruptly canceled the hearings and released a memo letting them off the hook.
Why did they do this? Once again, the power of the corporations overwhelmed their lackeys in Congress. The bold move of dumping health care insurance for millions of workers silenced the elected officials, who once again yielded their power to the almighty capitalists. Information getting out about such a brazen corporate plot risked the potential of an outpouring of anger by the people.
Here are some of the facts that these documents revealed:
AT&T produced a PowerPoint presentation entitled “Medical Cost Versus No Coverage Penalty” that promoted the concept of “pay not play.” It demonstrated how their costs would fall from $2.4 billion to $600 million if they pay government penalties instead of providing coverage.
A document produced for Verizon, the giant telecommunications company, stated, “Even though the proposed assessment on companies that do not provide health care are material, they are modest when compared to the average cost of health care” and “employers may consider exiting the health care market and send employees to the Exchanges.”
In an internal memo from Kenneth Huhn, vice president of labor relations at John Deere, Huhn urged his company to look at the alternative to providing health benefits, which in his words “would amount to denying coverage and just paying the penalty” and that he was sure he already had the ability to make this change under the company’s current labor agreement.
Internal documents also show that the giant anti-union Caterpillar Corporation felt that the penalty option deserved “serious consideration.”
Straddled by health care costs won by workers through years of struggle and sacrifice the bosses now see a chance to attack those benefits, using the new health care bill as an excuse.
These revelations make it clear that true health care reform will not result from a Democratic victory at the polls. It will take an energetic mass struggle in order to win health care for all.
The realities of the health care “reform” bill and Wall Street’s domination also point out the very real fact that capitalism as a system stands in the way of universal health care. Building a movement to defeat capitalism and replace it with socialism would be a great aid in the fight to put people over profits in health care industry.
