Friendly's slashes health benefits for 454 workers

[ckramer]

The new plan provides a maximum annual benefit of $2,000 for outpatient care, and covers only a small portion of the costs associated with major illnesses. Under the plan, employees could be liable for thousands of dollars in bills after a short hospital stay, leading some to seek free care from the state. Until last fall, the company offered them comprehensive healthcare insurance.

Gary Claxton, director of the healthcare marketplace project at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which says it provides nonpartisan analysis of health issues, said limited-benefit plans have widespread financial impact.

''When people on these plans get sick, they're going to go to the hospital and they're not going to be able to pay -- or they will pay and they'll lose their homes," Claxton said. ''Ultimately, it will hurt the families and the healthcare institutions."

link

[pfitz59]

1. Not very friendly of them!

........

[benddem]

2. what is Friendlys? n/t

[jschurchin]

3. Sit down restaurant and................

Ice cream joint. They also package ice cream for sale in grocery stores.

Think about this, these are people making minimum wage or maybe a little more. They cannot afford to get sick, thanks to our fearless nazi regime.

[joeybee12]

4. Chain of Restaurant's back east...

...sort of like Swenson's in the west. Ice cream is their specialty, burgers, etc. Not fast-food, sit down. Not great food, either, but a hit with kids.

[henslee]

7. Home of the Fribble.. a part of my childhood.

[brentspeak]

5. With the money that's gone wasted for the Iraq War

There could already be a solid foundation built for a national health care system. Our $$$$ = Bush cronies' riches.

[TheCowsCameHome]

6. No more Friendly's visits for this kid. Screw them.

I won't support these thieves.

[drm604]

8. We need to do something about this growing problem.

People need to know what's going on. We need a campaign. Billboards, full page ads, maybe TV and radio spots. Imagine a billboard something like this (this is a very rough draft):

• Albertson's
  
• Friendly's
  
• GM
  
• Ralph's
  
• Safeway
  

What will YOU do if your employer
decides to cut YOUR health benefits?

The Republicans don't care.

VOTE DEMOCRATIC.

It obviously needs some work (and it doesn't look great in bb code) and we could come up with a better and longer list of companies that have cut benefits.

At the very least, it should get people discussing the issues and, hopefully, it will force the Republicans to talk about it.

[0007]

10. Shut em down!

[PATRICK]

9. They don't even worry about the symbolism

making them personally or the system in general appear so cruelly ridiculous. We has restaurant across the way that had the name "Family Restaurant". They fired a waitress for getting pregnant and being unable to work. I met the person who runs the joint. Let's just say there was no incongruity except in the word on the sign.

Cannibal capitalism gone mad and staffed accordingly with mankind's "finest".

[CAG]

11. This stuff is inevitable if healthcare costs continue their unsustainable

growth. The bottom line is that if costs continue to grow annually at the 8-15%, a full 4 to 7 times inflation, that this will continue to become an increasing part of everyones budget, whether its the employees or employers portion of the health insurance premium, and/or each taxpayer's tax share to take care of medicare, medicaid, and other indigent care.

The blame doesn't lie with the employers, its in the actual cost of the health insurance premiums, thanks largely in part to overwhelming charges coming in from the healthcare providers (hospitals, clinics, physicians, pharmaceutical companies).

Nothing, not even socialized medicine, is going to solve this as long as costs grow at a rate well over inflation.

[drm604]

12. A large part of those costs

consists of insurance company profits, overhead due to the staffs medical offices need to handle all of the insurance paperwork, and the cost of uninsured people going to the much more expensive ER rather than a doctor's office. All of this extra cost could be eliminated or greatly reduced with a single-payer system. My understanding is that Medicare's overhead is very small, something like 3%.