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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (44570)	5/3/2004 10:14:58 AM
From: zonkie	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Republicans Unanimously Vote To Allow Employers To Rip Promised Retiree Health Benefits Out From Under Everyone’s Nose by John S. Ashton APRIL 23, 2004 - "Retirees who qualify for Medicare would see their health benefits cut or eliminated under a proposal approved Thursday by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. "The commission voted 3 to 1 in approval of the proposed rule, with three Republicans in favor and one Democrat opposing it." So reports CBS News (see: cbsnews.com ) This election is about morality, plain and simple. The Republican Party has entirely lost its conscience. Promised, expected retiree health benefits are one of the most vital things a person depends on. Currently it is illegal for companies to go back on their word and eliminate them. The Republicans – unanimously – want to change that, allowing any employer who feels like it to simply go back on their word. What employer won’t? In an age when "cost cutting" and "downsizing" has squeezed current workers without mercy or morals while executive compensation has grown exponentially, there is no incentive at all for companies – en masse – to not choose to go back on their word and eliminate the health care benefits so many depend on or were planning on. There is no downside for the companies – what can a retiree do, quit in protest when they don’t even work for the company? Today, the 3 Republicans appointed by President Bush to a board that exists not to deal with healthcare in the first place but only discrimination in the workplace had no problem, no moral values whatsoever, to stand in the way of them using what is supposed to be a minority protecting entity for the sake of assaulting the basic safety and security of millions upon millions and Americans – all for the sake of corporate profits. The EEOC. This is the tool that President Bush used to attack all retired or retiring Americans who had counted on promised health benefits, this is the tool that President Bush is using to stick America with something our elected officials in the Congress just voted down. As CBS reports, "…the new rule is identical to Section 631 of the Senate’s version of the Medicare Rx bill, which was killed by Congress "after hearing from tens of thousands of AARP members." But President Bush doesn’t care about the will of the people and the votes of their elected representatives. He has no moral code and doesn’t value either any American people or democracy. Coldly and entirely without conscience, he moved against the will of the people to rip the health coverage away from a seventy year old woman being treated for cancer, an eighty year old man with a heart ailment, men and women with diabetes – suddenly, they’ll lose their coverage. And the President was so determined to commit this horrible atrocity against millions of Americans that he went around Congress and used what is supposed to be a commission that protects workers from racism and discrimination to commit his entirely amoral, coldly brutal ends. As CBS reports, "Unfortunately, the EEOC has turned a deaf ear to those same concerns and is now trying to accomplish through the backdoor what Congress refused to do directly in the law." The EEOC commission appointed by President Bush. Except for the one Democrat on the panel, who voted against this nonsense, pointing out, as CBS reports, ""I came to the commission as a civil rights lawyer," Ishimaru told the Times. "Before making an exemption to a major civil rights law, you need a compelling reason, which I have not seen." Another example of why no good American, why no one who believes in Democracy, why no one with even the most basic moral values, can support President Bush and his brand of Bush/Limbaugh Republican scum.