Northwest labor press., August 17, 2007, Page 4, Image 4

From the archives of the Labor Press: 1977
Soaring health care co$t$
threaten your family
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(Editor’s Note: This article was pub-
lished in the Oregon Labor Press on
March 4, 1977. Verle Russell was a
grand lodge representative of the Ma-
chinists.)
Your DAILY Internet stop for labor news and info.
Washington State
Labor Council, AFL-CIO
Rick Bender, President ó Alan Link, Secretary-Treasurer
opeiu8/afl-cio
By VERLE RUSSELL
Most of you are working under
union contracts; most of you under
union-negotiated health and welfare
programs; and most of you probably
think you don’t need national health
security. Let me tell you that you do
need a national health program and
why you need it.
In 1952, I had the privilege, be-
cause I was a business representative,
of negotiating the first of the health
and welfare programs in Portland. It
covered the Truck Operators League
of Oregon, and took effect in April
1952. It covered 90 percent of med-
ical bills of a man and his family, and
the premium cost $8.65 a month.
Wage scales were $2.06 an hour. We
paid 15 cents for the administration of
it through the Transport Indemnity Co.
It is 25 years later; the Truck Oper-
ators League of Oregon negotiated its
latest agreement last April 1. The in-
surance is still carried through Lincoln
National Life Insurance Co.; Trans-
port Indemnity is still maintaining the
program and it has a lower retention
figure for the insurance company than
I was able to negotiate 24 years ago.
Twenty-four years ago I was able
to negotiate a 9 percent retention fig-
ure for Lincoln. Retention is that por-
tion of the premium that the insurance
company gets to keep as its profit.
That amounted to 78 cents in 1952.
Today, at an 8.1 percent retention fig-
ure, the profit amounts to $5.30. That’s
an increase of 679 percent in the insur-
ance company’s profit. Nice figure.
The Lincoln health and welfare
program today that is comparable to
the 1952 plan covers approximately 90
percent of the medical bills of a man
and his family. The premium for the
plan has increased to $76.59 a month.
That’s an increase of 885 percent.
Why do you and I need national
health? I’ll tell you why. Number one,
the medical costs in this town have
risen more than twice as fast as wages.
Number two, the insurance compa-
nies’ take has increased nearly twice as
fast as wages.
Now, what does that mean to you
and me? Well, it just happens by coin-
cidence that in 25 years it will be
2002. A lot of you are still going to be
working in 2002. In that year, at the
present rate, you will be paying $677 a
month for health insurance coverage.
Your wages will be about $32 an hour.
How do you like those figures? I sub-
mit to you that we cannot afford that
kind of health care cost.
One of the other things that is
wrong with most health insurance pro-
grams is that they terminate when your
employment terminates, and they rein-
state sometime after you go back to
work.
... The first thing that takes place
[for people on unemployment] is tak-
ing care of the payment on the house,
the grocery bill, the payment on the
car. Where in the devil does anything
come in for health and welfare?
They’re going to play Russian roulette
with their health coverage. You know
it, and I know it.
... Every insurance program in the
United States has this kind of deal:
you’ve either got to wait until the first
of the month following your going to
work, or X-number of hours. Some
come out to three months, others to six
months, and I have known it to be as
late as nine months after.
I want to give you a case history
about a guy who was fired from an in-
dustrial company. He was out of work
for several months and then he went to
work for another industrial company.
Eighty days after he went to work
— and 10 days before his health and
welfare became effective — his wife
came down with a serious allergy that
nearly killed her. She wound up in the
hospital.
The hospital cost was in excess of
$100 a day. The guy was working in a
nonunion shop making $4 an hour;
that’s $160 a week income. That’s the
immovable object being hit by the irre-
sistible force.
In less than 30 days they guy lost
his car, was evicted for non-payment
of rent, had to sell his furniture to feed
his kids; he lost time as a result of the
problem and his employer fired him
for absenteeism. He went right into the
welfare rolls.
Now, there is something basically
wrong with a country that turns a
working taxpayer into a welfare case
in 30 days. I submit to you that we
cannot afford that kind of health care
program.
ATPA
Administrators of
Employee Benefit Plans
IBEW
Local 280
Joins in the
Celebration of Labor’s Day
1305 S.W. 12th Avenue
Portland, Oregon 97201
(503) 274-1600
Wishes all Union Members a restful and
hard-earned Labor Day Weekend.
32969 Highway 99E, Tangent, Oregon
541-812-1771
PAGE 4
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PETER HERRLING
TOM WESTON
PATI PIRO-BOSLEY
A T P A
AUGUST 17, 2007