Has it occurred to anyone that age discrimination is built into our current healthcare system? I live in an at-will employment State which pretty much means I can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. I am a paralegal and am currently employed for a small, (translation - less than 50 employees), law firm. I have practiced employment law and workers' compensation law on both sides of the fence. I am currently working for the injured employee. A very cold, hard, reality in my firm is the fact that health care costs for employees have gone up substantially each year. I will be 48 years old next month. That alone makes me a more expensive employee than my 20 and 30 something coworkers.
Following the financial debacle of last September, so many of us lost our life savings. Some of us lost our jobs. A friend of mine, former Bank of America employee, killed himself. Now many of us older workers, are expected to continue with a healthcare system that practically begs small employers to let us go because our health care costs more than a younger employee. Age discrimination is against the law. But in an "at-will" State, particularly if you are employed by a small company, good luck proving you were let go due to discrimination and not for performance issues. Also, I know first hand, if you have no money - you cannot afford a good employment attorney and the EEOC is overburdened. Age discrimination is built into our current healthcare system. Why are we not using this argument to counter the "deathers"?
On a personal note, I am a good employee-never late, extra skills - Spanish-good attitude and work a lot of overtime. But seriously, I can be fired because I will be 48 next month and my employer may not want to pay the extra premium. We need to put the myths of "pull yourself up by the bootstraps", "rugged individualism" and "Horatio Alger" crap to bed forever. These myths/lies have always assumed an equal playing field...and with Reagan the implied message to all of these lies was "if you fail, it's your fault." If there ever was an "equal playing field" it disappeared w/NAFTA and all the outsourcing of jobs & the crash last September. 2% of this country holds most of the wealth. As Democrats we need to find a way to reach out to those blue-collar workers - who traditionally voted Republican- to show them, without condescencion, that they are voting against their own interests. Age discrimination is built into our current healthcare system. Who among you has a good one-liner bumper sticker for this?