MS>
MSGID: 1:3644/6 31dde320
KU>  KU> It has always been thus in real life. It is just that the bean
KU>  KU> counters are starting to count the beans of the middle class a
KU>  KU> is what  is really starting to tick people off.
MS>    No.
MS>    It is that the Fortune 500 is looking for every way to screw their 
MS>workers, and part of that is cutting the employer's share of health 
MS>coverage at big companies.  Look at the U.S. auto industry: the most 
MS>acrimonious bargaining issue recently is over who pays for health insur
MS>and how good the benefits are, not the pay.
	It is NOT just the F500.  The high costs associated with health 
insurance is the main reason Mom and Pops have either stopped or never gaveit 
in the first place. Again look at the Auto Industry. Other than wages and 
steel, healthcare is the largest cost involved in the building of a car. It 
was $600 each car when Iococca was at Chrysler, so who knows what it is now. 
US businesses over reached when HC was a relatively inexpensive way to buy 
off wage increases over the years. Now that the worm has turned, the 
coporations are trying to change it. And because the unions want something 
for nothing (that is their job) they are in fits of apoplexy over this take 
away.  
MS>    The Fortune 500 sees in "health reform" the possibility to keep the
MS>workers happy and cut the companies' costs by sticking small business a
MS>self-employed people who typically are more interested in higher income
MS>than in higher benefits with more of the national health care budget.
	Actually I would say that the F500 (and the unions, and the smaller 
business and even the Feds) want to stick more of the healthcosts with 
ANYBODY else. Such is politics
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