Business Opponents of Health Care Reform “Sputter and Whine”
David Lazarus, consumer columnist on the LA Times‘ business page, takes executives at Eastman Kodak and Verizon to task in the Sunday paper. He notes that Kodak has laid off 22,000 workers over the past 5 years; at Verizon, the number of pink slips will total 16,000 by December 31, with the possibility of more next year. He suggests the CEO’s evince “more than a little chutzpah” in opposing health care reform legislation (as they did last week at a Business Roundtable news conference).
“Where do they expect all the people they’re thrown into the unemployment line to get coverage?” he asks.
Lazarus notes a Forbes’ estimate that the nation’s largest 500 public companies have laid off 611,000 employees in 2009. Many in that number have undoubtedly lost their health insurance.
Lazarus concludes with this challenge to big business leaders: “If they have a better idea for effectively providing coverage to the people they once called their own, let them speak.”
