Friendly"s corporation latest to cut employees health care benefits

[merbex]

Boston Globe article detailing a MA based corporation's (total number of employees - roughly 17000)latest pronouncement regarding benefits package:

http://www.boston.com/business/articles/2006/01/25/friendlys_slashes_health_benefits_for_454_workers/?page=1

454 fulltime workers - the rest or part- time or seasonal

Last paragraph:''Friendly's is asking the hospitals and other employers to foot the bill for treating its employees, said Hank J. Porten, chief executive of Holyoke Medical Center, a 202-bed community hospital. ''We end up charging more, and other companies who provide insurance pick up more of the tab for those that offer limited insurance in the community. More companies are walking away from their responsibility."

Could we, as a society, PLEASE get serious about addressing this HUGE problem?

I know, I know, it joins a long list:

-Americans being eavesdropped upon by their own gov't
-B* has broken the Army
-We've entered a phase of our foreign policy that promotes perpetual war in the Mid east
-federal deficit as big and crushing as our nation has ever seen
- massive layoffs at Ford
-re-building the gulf region

This administartion's poll numbers should be in the single digits

America, when are you going to wake up????

[Clark2008]

1. The massive layoffs at Ford are, in part, as a result

of the health problem you initially describe.

If we had national healthcare insurance, many of these American corporations wouldn't have to lay off employees to cut costs (or, at least, claim that).

[Skittles]

4. it is also a major reason why outsourcing is so popular too

we are in a downward spiral and like a tornado, we will be spun until there is nothing left

[Nomen Tuum]

2. You got to wake people up from their Rapture-induced slumber

Millions of Americans have been brainwashed by TV Preachers into thinking that the worse things get, the sooner the Rapture will come and take them away. I know this too well, my whole family believes Jesus is coming to get them in a week or 2.

I've got a brittle diabetic 62 year old sister with no health insurance. You even mention national health insurance to her and she goes off like a psychobomb. She starts spewing that Canadians cross the border to get their health care here because it's rationed by government bureaucrats. Then the next sentence out of her mouth is that national health care includes abortion, which is a no-no for her...

[Vinca]

5. I was going to tell you to have her talk to some Canadians

because the ones I know are happy as clams with their health care system. Then I remembered the "TV preachers" part of the post and figured she wouldn't listen anyway.

[fasttense]

3. Every time I watch TV news, I start to wonder if I'm just a little crazy.

I mean the journalists and news programs don't seem to care about all the illegal and immoral actions committed by this administration. Maybe I'm just as nuts as the wacko Christians. But then I come here and read about another atrocity, another corporation making profits off the middle class and I wonder why everyone isn't taking to the streets.

[lanlady]

6. wouldn't it be loverly

If we weren't spending gazillions on bombs, wars, Halliburton, and super duper spy computers, we could afford some measure of decent health care for all Americans.