Talk about irony.
Nurses and other healthcare workers are striking because their employer wants them to share the costs of increasingly expensive health benefits.
Some l,700 employees this past week began picketing offices and clinics of one of the nation’s oldest health-maintenance organizations—Group Health Cooperative in the State of Washington.
They don’t want to pay premiums, deductibles or co-pays for office visits and prescriptions—despite the fact that GHC’s medical costs have increased at double-digit percentage rates for several years.
And some of the major budget-busters are wages and benefits, along with rising costs for medications and equipment.
No one doubts that healthcare workers—excluding physicians—are underpaid for the vital services they provide. The national shortage of nurses is the direct result of that unfairness.
That aside, however, other American workers have had to bite the bullet and accept their fair share of the financial burden for health care. (29 AUGUST 2004)
