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 I couldn't sleep last night because I was mulling over the comments made in a recent post about the Automakers bailout. Everyone has good points but here is what I've gotten to. I am very glad that GM provides good insurance coverage. Otherwise, we would not be able to provide surgery to "fix my son's ears" which is so essential for a six-year-old to have in order to thrive in a hearing world.

However, why do people always blame the autoworkers for their woes? Yes, we do have good insurance. No, we do not expect people's tax dollars to provide for our children's college education and I seriously doubt that the bailout will provide that. GM does take care of their employees and they should. If anyone has worked in a factory, they will understand what I mean by hard, dirty work. It is so dangerous. I refuse to allow my husband to tell me what he does at work because I would literally lie awake every single night worrying about him. He works in one of the most dangerous parts of the foundry, it's dangerous and it's dirty. Know why they offer early retirement for their employees? Because they don't have long to live to enjoy it because of all the health complications. I have read of so many obituaries where a former GM employee died within a year or two after retirement because of health issues. There is a saying out at the plant that if you stop breathing the air out there, you will die sooner than later. Apparently, your body does build up resistance to the stuff floating around back there that when you stop breathing in the fumes, your body can't handle it and goes into shock. Ok, this is not medically proven nor is it scientific, so if you quote me, be sure to say, this is just an observation from someone who knows people at the factory.

Isn't that a good thing then that GM provides insurance for their employees? The employees work hard all those years in bad working conditions (I mean, come on, who would want to work among the smelt and dirty air and hot sand blowing all over?) and their lives have been shortened due to working in that kind of atmosphere ... so why not provide the insurance for the employees and their families so when they do die from different ailments, they're not going to suffer at the end? Or their families forced to pay castrophic bills? Isn't that what we all want?

So, let's go back to insurance envy (believe me, a lot of my friends here at home are envious), why do people attack GM for providing good insurance? Why not attack the insurance companies for their predatory behavior? Why not attack the pharmetical companies for driving the costs of drugs up? If insurance companies were fair, they would offer good plans to small business owners. My parents own a small business and I can guarantee that most of their profits went straight to the insurance companies for their employees (when they had them, but they couldn't afford to provide better coverages for their employees, so they left to find jobs that could provide them). But you don't hear those stories at all in the media. If you do, it's usually mentioned in stories of interest where a person can't afford to pay for cancer treatments or has been denied help because it didn't match the insurance company's policy. Whatever. The point is, instead of attacking people who do have good insurance, why not point the finger at the real culprits in the picture? The insurance companies are making a lot of money. What irritates my husband is that if you go into the hospital and requires an x-ray to fix something, the insurance company will cover it but at a discount. So instead of the insurance company paying $500 for the x-ray, it'll pay $250 and the hospital will call it good. But if you don't have insurance, you have to pay the entire $500 for it. Now, isn't that just wrong here? The hospital will give the insurance company a discount (they are already getting money from the policy holder who pays for the services and now they get another break?), but won't give the same discount to someone who can't afford the x-ray to begin with. It boggles my mind.

I have a friend who pays $900 a month for her family insurance. I mean, that much money goes out of her husband's paycheck (he works for a mid-size auto dealership lot) for insurance, plus there's a $1,000 deductible per person in that household plus there's co-pay for every single doctor's visit. She doesn't have vision and dental. Health insurance is a major concern for her and it should be. Fortunately, she and her family are healthy, but that is not the case for a lot of Americans. Shouldn't there be a way to fix it so there's health insurance for everyone in America? I seriously doubt that the doctors will lose any money over this (they're paying into the medicare program because it's from their taxes, but don't they get some of that back when they accept medicare patients?). I think the insurance companies employees will get the same amount of pay ... the top guy at the helm may not get all of his bonuses and perks, but he's making enough money as it is. It shouldn't affect him at all.

Again, it's the middle guy getting the squeeze from the corporations. I believe that there is so much greed among the top officers of so many businesses, that they've lost sight of what they should be doing. If they remember that at all. I do not know enough about insurance companies but have enough experience dealing with some of the issues ... I am thankful that we have it, but once my husband leaves for school, we won't have that good of insurance again. Unless somewhere there is a change. So let's stop attacking the automakers for providing good insurance for their employees. Let's start thinking of ways to provide insurance for everyone. That is a part of the American dream after all.