Cold Comfort

The health care system in these United States seems to be on everyone's mind these days, from the Medicare legislation that passed with such fanfare, to the president's State of the Union address, to the controversy over the ability of U.S. citizens to get prescription drugs from Canada to the ongoing strike of West Coast grocery workers to preserve their health insurance coverage.

Health care premiums are slated to climb 12 percent this year, six times faster than inflation. Prescription drug prices have been recording escalating double digit increases for the past several years. Last year's 19 percent hike reflects a rate at which prices will more than double every five years.

It gets worse. According to the most recent figures, 62.6 percent of the U.S. population has employer-based coverage. Only 55 percent of small firms offered coverage, compared to 99 percent of larger companies. And since so many larger employers have cut staff in recent years, that means that American workers are less likely to have benefits if they are lucky enough to find another job. That's one reason why the number of those without heath care coverage in America has ballooned to 43.6 million, or about 18 percent of the population.

We in the IBEW are not immune. In negotiation after negotiation with our largest employers, the size and scope of health care benefits is a major issue. Sometimes we preserve our benefits; other times we have to swallow cuts. Our labor-management administered plans are forced to make tough choices every day on how to maintain coverage.

Last summer, the IBEW was proud to become the only international union to offer a prescription drug program on a national scale, available to all members, Sav-Rx. In this time of extreme dysfunction in the health care system, Sav-Rx provides essential relief from skyrocketing prescription drug costs to members and their families. The plan may represent an oasis from the chaos of the medical delivery system-but it can remain an island only for so long.

The recent Medicare "reform" legislation shows why. You'll be hearing a lot about it in this election year, especially the passage of a Medicare prescription benefit. What the backers of the law-President Bush and his congressional allies-won't tell you is that by 2006, the year their new plan kicks in, Medicare will pay for a portion of the costs its beneficiaries incur, but only up to a certain dollar amount. After that, the so-called doughnut-hole provision takes effect. In that gaping hole-between the moderate and catastrophic categories-seniors have to pay for their own medications.

The problem is that many employers-anxious to get out from under the cost of insuring retires, including providing prescription drug benefits-will say, "Well, the government has done something." They will use this as an excuse to bail out of their responsibilities to their retirees. We can only guess how many seniors are going to be even worse off than they were before the administration provided this "help."

Through the years and generations, our union leaders and their predecessors have laid a solid foundation of decent wages and fair benefits for us to build upon. But that foundation is on course to come crashing down.

As individuals, we can't stop the tide. Even as one union, we can't. But as citizens of the United States and Canada, we can take a three-part treatment. Step one is to register to vote in your respective state or province. Step two is to become informed on the issue and ask your elected representatives or the candidates who seek to replace them what their views are on the heath care issue. Step three is to vote accordingly. We can assist you with steps one and two. The last is up to you.

  Secretary-
Treasurers
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January/February 2004 IBEW Journal