The Most Heartbreaking 99% Graphic You Will See This Week (link added)

[Omaha Steve]

Courtesy of Move On e-mail.

http://front.moveon.org/the-most-heartbreaking-99-graphic-you-will-see-this-week/?rc=daily.share&id=32522-3297678-qVb00Ix

[Marie Marie]

1. Wow - that is so sad and speaks volumes about the fight of OWS.

F**k the insurance companies, the bankers, Wall Street, the Multi-national corporations and the rest of these greedy bastards who have stolen the soul of this nation.

[JDPriestly]

2. It's a familiar story.

So sad and yet so common.

[santamargarita]

3. The day I told my employer I had cancer, they fired me.

[beam me up scottie]

5. I was "laid off" one week after I had surgery for mine.

I was told I'd be eligible for COBRA but my current health policy was terminated that day.

I don't know how some people can sleep at night.

[barbtries]

16. i don't either.

that is so wrong. so wrong.

[SoCalDem]

10. The thing is.. you should not have had to TELL your boss you even had cancer

You should have been able to tell your boss that you had a serious illness that needed tending to, and you were requesting a leave of absence to deal with it. You should have been able to hold onto your privacy and the ability to tell the people you wanted to know about the nature of your illness. Your condition should not be "office-gossip" fodder.

BUT...because insurance is provided to us BY our employers, they end up being our de facto "guardians/parents" who now have to know every detail of our personal lives, and of course they also hold the purse strings when it comes to life & death issues of payment for treatments..

Jobs should be about being paid to do a task for a wage, and what we do on "our" time should be up to us., Our health should be between us and our doctors...not our employers. When time off is needed, it should be available to us, with a liveable unemployment benefit, and the necessary medical care provided by a national health service...single payer, paid through our taxes.

[PotatoChip]

26. You know, when you really think about it

-It IS odd that something as removed from one's occupation as health insurance is tied to said occupation. I wonder when and why that began? Anyone know exactly?

My guess would be perhaps in the 50's when this country valued their workers and maybe this was a way to lure them to their company? Maybe each company would up the ante w/better pensions, vacation and sick time, oh and even health insurance in order to compete for good workers?

I wonder where else in the world do companies do this? Are we the only ones?

[SoCalDem]

27. It started when wages/prices were frozen, and companies had to offer "things" instead of money

that was how they competed for workers.. that's when expense accounts, company cars, medical insurance & other goodies started being part of the compensation package..and of course insurance companies saw the opportunity and ran with it..and we have all been suffering since..



http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Fringe_Benefit.aspx

Fringe Benefit
Gale Encyclopedia of U.S. Economic History | 1999 | Copyright
FRINGE BENEFIT

Next to wages, fringe benefits are the most important method businesses use to entice workers to accept or stay in jobs. Fringe benefits, also known as "employee benefits," can be provided voluntarily by employers, required by law, or won through collective bargaining negotiations between companies and employees. Fringe benefits can be generally divided into those offered individually, such as 401(k) retirement plans, and those offered to employees as a group, such as daycare facilities or free lunch. Most employee benefit plans traditionally offered three basic benefits: health insurance, a retirement plan or pension, and additional benefits, such as stock option plans or life insurance. A crucial advantage of fringe benefits to businesses was that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) allowed firms to deduct benefits as an employee compensation expense from the taxes they owe. Similarly while employees had to pay taxes on any increases in their salaries, their benefits were not taxed.

In the late 1990s, medical benefits and flex-time— allowing workers to choose their daily work schedules—were the two most important fringe benefits for U.S. job seekers. Medical benefits comprised the single most costly benefit for employers. A special class of fringe benefits were "perks" (short for perquisites ), which were usually offered only to senior-level employees. Perks included mobile car phones, executive parking, company cars, and even chauffeured limousines or a company jet.

In the United States, fringe benefits became much more common after collective bargaining became common in the 1930s and 1940s, giving workers the power to persuade businesses to improve working conditions. During World War II (1939–1945), government-mandated wage and price controls prevented companies from giving raises, so they relied on fringe benefits to recruit and reward employees. Fringe benefits accounted for 17 percent of the total compensation of blue-collar workers by 1951, and 30 percent by 1981. In the 1980s employee benefit reforms introduced by President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989) had the unintended effect of complicating the national fringe benefits system, and in the 1990s innovations like customizable "cafeteria" health, insurance, vacation plans, and SIMPLE (Savings Incentive Match Plan for Employees) benefits simplified benefits choices. During the tight job market of the 1990s, employers began offering a more creative mix of fringe benefits, including club memberships, legal services, home offices, and errand services. Among the most sought-after benefits were stock options, or shares in an employer's stock. During the stock market boom of the 1990s some fast-growing companies boasted that their stock options had turned secretaries and other non-management workers into millionaires.

[PotatoChip]

33. Thank you for that.

Very interesting. I learn something new every time I come here it seems.

Sad that it had to be under the sad circumstances of the OP. BTW my thanks to the OP as well. K&R

[barbtries]

15. NO.

that is so wrong. big company, small company? how could anyone be so cold. i'm so sorry. and i will take this as a lesson in case i get a diagnosis. i never thought until i read your post that such a thing could happen.
what is happening to this country.

[druidqueen]

24. cancer

The same thing happened to my husband on Friday, January 13, 1995. Told his boss he had lung cancer and in the next sentence his boss told him he was laid off. Heartless bastards! :grr

[redqueen]

4. K&R

[area51]

6. Kick.

Each day, 273 people die due to lack of health care in the U.S.; that's 100,000 deaths per year. This is not only a moral issue, but a national security issue that we're so vulnerable given that our health care delivery system is so fragmented and dysfunctional.

We need single-payer health care, not a welfare bailout for the serial-killer insurance agencies.

We don't need the GingrichCare of mandated, unregulated, for-profit insurance that is still too expensive, only pays parts of medical bills, denies claims, bankrupts and kills people.

Republinazi '93 plan:

"Subtitle F: Universal Coverage - Requires each citizen or lawful permanent resident to be covered under a qualified health plan or equivalent health care program by January 1, 2005."

"We will never have real reform until people's health stops being treated as a financial opportunity for corporations."

"Employer-based health insurance has always been a bad idea. Your life should not depend on who you work for." -- T. McKeon

"Any proposal that sticks with our current dependence on for-profit private insurers ... will not be sustainable. And the new law will not get us to universal coverage ...." -- T.R. Reid, The Healing of America

"Despite the present hyperbole by its supporters, this latest effort will end up as just another failed reform effort littering the landscape of the last century." --John Geyman, M.D., Hijacked! The Road to Single Payer in the Aftermath of Stolen Health Care Reform

[RainDog]

7. please post this as its own thread

and link back to this one

[TK421]

8. I think my blood pressure just spiked nt

[coalition_unwilling]

11. +1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 - n/t

[progressoid]

13. Mine too.

[nilram]

9. sh-t.

[tk2kewl]

12. K&R

[Beacool]

14. That's one powerful statement.

I wish nothing but the best for him, may he make a full recovery.

What's happening in this country in downright depressing and I don't think that it will get much better. Both parties are a mirror image of each other.

:-(

[ejbr]

17. k & r n/t

[bertman]

18. Words fail me. Thank goodness they did not fail him. REC.

[seabeyond]

19. yup. wow. nt

[Fire Walk With Me]

20. K&R :(

[Stuart G]

21. K and R thanks for posting....nt

[femrap]

22. Eat the Rich. nt

[lunasun]

23. yeah disgusted for decades now with that "charities will fill the gap"" crap he mentions

[MissDeeds]

25. K&R n/t

[SpankMe]

28. This is useless if confined to MoveOn and DU.

Without getting this sort of thing in front of the faces of more people who are not in the DU/MoveOn choir, it has little impact.

In the past I've had a Freeper pseudonym so I could post stuff like this there. But, my stuff always got taken off by their mods (even though I presented it in a calm "counterpoint-like" tone and not with bombast and profanity). My account keeps getting banned. And, I vomit every time I read their threads and the responses to my posts (before they get taken down).

These "I am the 99%" vignettes need to be available in high resolution so I can print a few out in 11x17 and wheat-paste mount them to surfaces in public areas. They'll get read a few times before they get taken down.

We need to carpet bomb the public sphere in any way possible with these messages.

[onecent]

29. This needs to go viral...Youtube...most of my friends never

see moveon.org

Thanks

[catbyte]

30. Wow.

[patrice]

31. REALLY sorry to say, there's a significant minority who thinks you should just go ahead & die &

get out of their way.

[geardaddy]

32. K and R

stunning.

[TK421]

34. What the FUCK is happening in this country?

[Enthusiast]

35. Kicked and recommended! nt

[Yavin4]

36. Healthcare Should Be A Constitutional Right

Access to medical science is a basic human necessity. Any society that eschews health care for all is barbaric.

[closeupready]

37. Powerful. K&R

nt

[cherish44]

38. Just about all of the 99% are a disaster or health problem away from financial ruin

And most of these people (myself included) DO work, pay taxes, pay their bills and obey the law

[Swede Atlanta]

39. Yeppers....

and the freaks in the GOP like it this way. Too bad, so sad for you dummy. You shouldn't have lost your job is their mantra.