The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission revealed a new policy allowing employers to revoke health coverage of retirees. According to the new policy, once a retiree is eligible for Medicare at age 65, the health benefits they earned through a lifetime of work can now be significantly reduced or eliminated altogether. Employers also will be able to steal health benefits from the retiree’s spouse and dependants.
There are currently over 10 million workers who depend on employer-sponsored health plans. Many workers who are already on Medicare rely on their employer-sponsored health plan to supplement the necessary coverage that they do not receive from Medicare.
This year, retirees have seen their health care premiums increase an average of 6.1 percent, but since 2001 premiums have skyrocketed an average of 78 percent, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey.
The new policy is part of a larger assault on retired workers health benefits. Employers have worked constantly to shift the costs of benefits back onto retirees. According to a 2001 Government Accountability Office study, only one-third of large employers and less that one-tenth of small employers offer health benefits to retirees.
The American Association of Retired People, an advocacy group for elderly Americans, filed a lawsuit against the new policy. The AARP claims the new policy is in “direct conflict” with the Age Discrimination Act of 1967.
Already the courts have intervened on the side of the bosses. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals called the new policy, which robs workers and their families of hard-earned health benefits, a “reasonable, necessary, and proper exercise” of authority.
In response to criticism over the new policy, EEOC lawyer Dianna Johnston argued that employers would “just drop retiree health benefits altogether” if they were forced to “provide identical benefits for retirees under 65 and over 65.” This is familiar logic. Time and again workers are told they have to sacrifice one benefit in order to preserve others.
As long as profits remain the principal economic motive, the gains that workers have won through struggle will continue to be attacked and stripped away at every turn.
Under socialism—a system where the profit motive is removed—access to health care is a basic human right that no supervisor, employer or court can take away.
