[Vision2020] Wal-Mart and the health care burden

[Joan Opyr]

On 25 Nov 2005, at 11:55, Tom Hansen wrote:

> Greetings Visionaires -
>
> Now that you have read one take on Wal-Mart's health care plan, let's 
> read another one.
>
> http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/ns10212003.cfm
>
> Mr. Harkins' opinion is based upon what Wal-Mart management says.  The 
> AFL-CIO discussion is based upon what Wal-Mart management does.
>
> Hmmmm.
>
> Take care, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho

Thanks for the link, Tom.  Thanks also to Jeff Harkins for his take on 
this subject.  I hadn't planned to get too personal in this debate, but 
I really feel that it would behoove those of us who enjoy the 
comparatively generous health care benefits offered by the University 
of Idaho and Washington State University to be a bit more circumspect 
in our analysis of what Wal-Mart deems adequate benefits.  When was the 
last time Jeff Harkins had to worry about a burdensome co-pay or a 
massive deductible that rendered his health insurance essentially 
worthless?  For that matter, when was the last time I had to worry 
about such things?

In case you're interested, it was 1993, when I was a graduate student 
at Ohio State University.  I had a cavity in a wisdom tooth; it was not 
covered by my student insurance; and I needed to get the damned thing 
pulled.  But what could I do?  I didn't have the money, and so I packed 
the cavity each morning and night with Aspergum, and I carried on as 
best I could.  I did this for nearly a year until I moved to Idaho and 
got a job with the university.  In 1988, after I graduated from NC 
State, I  had double pneumonia and pleurisy.  Again, I was uninsured.  
I spent a month in bed at my grandmother's house, being nursed by an 
elderly woman who meant well but was not up on how to actually care for 
a pneumonia patient.  I think of that month as my time with Florence 
Nightmare.  I needed to be in the hospital, but I couldn't afford it, 
and so instead, I relied on the cash-pay Quick Care and my 
grandmother's kindness.  I still don't know why I'm not dead.  I guess 
I'm a testament to the healing power of sheer orneriness.

Let me make it clear once and for all where I'm coming from on the 
Wal-Mart issue: I believe that health care is a right, not a privilege. 
  I believe that there should be a minimum standard of living for all 
people.  I believe in living-wage jobs.  I believe that working forty 
hours a week ought be enough to keep the average adult in food, 
clothing, and shelter.  I believe that our trade deficit has and will 
continue to destroy our standard of living; that it will render the 
"American Dream" increasingly impossible to achieve.  We cannot 
continue to consume 25%  of the world's resources while outsourcing U. 
S. production and manufacturing jobs.  Wal-Mart, all by its lonesome, 
accounts for 10% of the U. S. trade deficit.  I have made a decision 
not to help Wal-Mart destroy U. S. jobs, the U. S. economy, and small 
local retail.

Jeff Harkins can shop at Wal-Mart all he likes; he is free to work 
hammer and tongs to bring a devastating Wal-Mart Supercenter to town 
and plop it down across from our city cemetery; he can accuse me of 
protectionism, communism, idiocy, thumb-sucking, and the heartbreak of 
psoriasis.  I don't care.  (In the words of my late grandfather, if I 
wanted any shit out of Jeff Harkins, I'd squeeze his head.)  I will do 
as I see fit, and I see fit to fight the siting of a Wal-Mart 
Supercenter here in my adopted home town.

And once I start fighitng, well . . . everyone duck.  Jeff Harkins is 
about to hit the fan.

Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.joanopyr.com