"Affordable Care," that is.
My father owned a small business when I was growing up, a machine shop, which made small parts for larger machines. He started it himself as owner and sole employee, and it grew to employ a dozen people or so at its largest. He was a lifelong Republican, but even as a Republican entrepreneur (though I don't think that word was used to describe folks like him, then) he recognized an obligation to his workers to provide them with certain benefits beyond simple wages, one of those benefits being health insurance.
Healthcare plans in one form or another have been around for almost 150 years, surprisingly enough. In the 1870s some railroad and mining companies, as well as other industries, began offering worker access to company doctors (at employee expense, but still, it was a start) and in 1910 a company called Montgomery Ward and Co. (a competitor of Sears, Roebuck, for those of you younger than a certain age. Sears? Oh, yeah, they merged with K-Mart, and barely exist now, themselves) began the first group-insurance contracts. And of course they added some to the cost of doing business, but that was simply acknowledged, accepted, and passed along, in the time-honored tradition. But the point is that employers cared for, in a couple of senses, their employees. My father even went so far as to continue to pay health insurance costs to one of his employees who went into business for himself as a carpenter, and whose wife was pregnant; they couldn't afford their own health insurance, so Dad paid until the baby was born. I still run into those folks occasionally and, although that happened more than 50 years ago, needless to say, they have never forgotten it.
I'm thinking about this stuff this weekend for a few reasons: it's Labor Day, a day set aside nominally to honor the workers of America, those men and women who built and continue to build this country and to keep it running smoothly (unless Congress gets in the way); because in a month the "open enrollment" phase of the Affordable Healthcare Act (I refuse to use the term "Obamacare," a pejorative term coined to demean the law and its sponsor) begins; and because, speaking of Congress getting in the way, this weekend a group of conservative activists ("Americans for Prosperity," founded and funded by the notorious Koch brothers) is gathered in Florida and, spearheaded by Sens. Cruz and Rubio (Tio Tomases to their people, for sure), is laying plans to once and for all find a way to de-fund (that one little vowel makes all the difference, doesn't it--"de-fund" rather than "defend") universal healthcare, allegedly because of the increased burden, largely financial, it will cause to small business, or businesses in general. Never mind that their carefully-packed Supreme Court validated the Act this spring, or that the majority of Americans support it.
How can we have gotten to this point, after 100 or so years of taking care of workers' needs? We blame government, but what about Big Pharma, or the Insurance lobbies, to name just two? Why must blame and consequence always be laid on the backs of government or the workers, rather than examining the obscene profits generated by big business, who, coincidentally, always seem to lead the fight against worker rights, benefits, and safety? We'll pay lip service to our respect and need for our workers but, if that lip thing should turn out to be oral cancer--well, buddy, you're on your own. We used to take care of each other as a society; now we actively and gleefully legislate against societal connection and safety nets, leaving folks to depend on individual acts of kindness. Sometimes that works, and you hear heartwarming stories of people rallying around someone in need, but it's totally whimsical. Whimsy may be a fine thing if you live in Milne's 100 Acre Wood, but it's not much to base a real-life society on.
The reason for this monumental change may be as simple as the shift in our economy, from manufacturing to service. Back in the day, we made stuff, real, tangible stuff, stuff that other folks wanted and that we could sell and profit from in a way which somehow allowed businesses to take care of their workers, which they are so unwilling to do today. Even--or maybe especially--Henry Ford recognized that workers needed to be cared for and compensated, else he'd have no one who could buy the products they made. And I know, I know: the rise of powerful unions, collective bargaining, vested pensions, abuses, entitlements (now there's a slippery word, huh?), and on. But those unions arose from a need to protect workers who could not depend on their overlords being particularly fond of whimsy and, see above, how are those abuses different from the greed and power displayed by Big Business, except that they were benefitting the wrong team?
When we have an economy based on price, not quality or value, the center cannot hold. If our goods are made by 10-year-olds in Asian sweatshops, if you have to sell a burger for a buck, how can you pay your workers a living wage, let alone give them benefits? If your profit margin is 3% or so, as is true for fast food places, it's tough. And yet we regularly hear of corporations making record-breaking profits, and the income/wealth disparity between the lowest workers and the highest CEOs is growing larger all the time. All the while, we're demanding that workers take less, work fewer hours so that legally they don't have to be paid benefits, and taking away their rights to bargain collectively, which is the only hope they have of gaining any power. Remember, way back near the beginning of what has become a lengthy piece, there was mention of the importance of one little vowel? Here's another example: Today, Karl Marx's famous cry "Workers of the world, unite!" has been shifted just slightly, to "Workers of the world, untie...."
So here's to all of us workers, running as fast as we can to stay in one place as the treadmill goes faster and gets narrower. Enjoy the long weekend (unless you don't get the extra day), work hard, be grateful for what you have, and above all, don't get injured or ill. And oh, yeah--keep your American flag lapel pin (made in China?) brightly polished.
Here're some songs I'm gonna play on Tuesday:
Union Sundown Bob Dylan
Union Man Neil Young
There Is Power In A Union Billy Bragg
Wasted Union Blues It's A Beautiful Day
Union Maid Judy Collins/Pete Seeger
Workingman's Blues #2 Bob Dylan
Workingman's Blues Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee
Working Too Hard Lyle Lovett
Workin' In A Coal Mine Lee Dorsey
Working On The Highway Bruce Springsteen
Working Man Bo Diddley
Work To Do Average White Band
Working For The Man Roy Orbison
The Work Song Maria Muldaur
Work Song Nina Simone
Work Bob Marley & The Wailers
Mr. President (Have Pity On The Working Man) Randy Newman
Millworker James Taylor
I'll Take Care Of You Van Morrison
I'll Take Care Of You J.D. Souther
God Will Take Care Of You Mahalia Jackson
You Just Don't Care Santana
Why Should I Care Beck, Bogart & Appice
Who Cares Cannonball Adderly/Bill Evans
Takin' Care Of Business Bachman-Turner Overweight
Trouble & Care John Gorka
Somebody Who Cares Paul McCartney
Nobody Cares For Me The Be Good Tanyas
Nobody Cares Ray Charles
Nobody Cares John Mayall
I Don't Care Anymore Phil Collins
If I Didn't Care Mose Allison
I Was A Fool To Care James Taylor
I Still Care John Mayall
See you on the Interwebs at WOOL.fm.
Thanks Mark, very nicely said. Your dad was a good man. We, at the TFW twenty-five years ago, paid our employee 7 paid holidays, two, then later three weeks paid vacation, and 100% of a family health plan. Now, we have no employees, and we can't afford to pay any benefits to ourselves. My wife and I have individual health plans, with no co-pay, and a deductible of $10,000.This is costing us over $12k/year. How can we go on like this? You hear that more and more folks are choosing to have necessary surgeries over seas..even after travel expenses, it's way more affordable to travel to Europe or the far East to check into hospitals over there that often have better success rates than our hospitals here. They say that you can't shop in a mall, or eat in a restaurant in these hospitals, but really, that seems like a small price to pay. Should the healthcare industry and the insurance companies be non profits? If they ever became non-profits, would our young best and brightest then go to wall street, where they can become fabulously wealthy? Sure, some would, but most wouldn't I bet. I think that there seems to be more of our young people putting more value on service to the good of people than scheming how to become rich. I was talking to a recent law school graduate last week-end, a daughter of one of my clients. When I asked what kind of law she was going into, she proudly said she was going to be a public defender..go figure! We of course, have to pay for good healthcare. It isn't free, we all know that, but, isn't it time that we realize that one way or other, we're all paying for this mess that we're in? There are three tiers in this country. There are still a few who can afford to pay for the Cadillac plans of yesteryear that cover everything. There is a much larger strata at the bottom, getting larger yearly, that have no insurance and they are jamming up the ER's. In the middle, a layer of middle class folks struggling to be responsible and have what they can just barely afford to avoid catastrophe if and when the inevitable healthcare emergency happens. Who in their right mind would say that our system is great? It aint, and we all know it. So, along comes Obama, and he does what he can to improve the system, and yes, his political enemies are attacking him, and using "pejorative" terms like Obamacare, to put it down. It's hard to see how much progress can be made when most of one side of the isle is in the pocket of the insurance and healthcare lobbyists, and maybe half on the other side. I'm all for the Affordable Healthcare Act, good for Obama..he got what he could, and we'll see if things improve.
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