Pure capitalism equally unhealthy

Pure capitalism equally unhealthy
Date	December 30, 2005
Section(s)	Opinion
Brief
To the Editor: The big economic news of ’05? Profits depend on cutting costs, especially health care costs. A main reason for Maytag profit woes. Giants of industry like GM and Ford are in financial trouble mainly because of health care costs. It was not that far in the near past that employer-paid health care was a standard for both large numbers of employees and small numbers of employees of factories and businesses. I’m sorry, but I listen to business talk shows. The Republican talking-heads tell us that not only is employer-paid health care a thing of the past but so are labor unions, the main bargaining tool to get employer paid health care. It’s the bragging about the “great” economy by the Republicans that bothers me. But how can the economy be “great”? Employer-paid health care was a “standard of living,” not a perk. The economy is great in the rarefied air at the top, but the masses simply lost part of their standard of living. And by the claims that labor unions have no part in this “kind” of economy, it seems that that standard of living is gone forever. One letter writer touched on the need for employer-paid health care. Most blue collar workers at Maytag needed work-related medical services because of the demands of their job. Without paid health care, factories can “burnout” their employees without consequence. The Republicans are showing the purity of capitalism and the “what is mine is mine and all I can get is mine” attitude. They’re bound and determined to learn the hard way that the far opposite end of socialism (pure capitalism) is equally unhealthy. Stuart Allspach Baxter

Advertisements