Temp Agencies and Nationalized Health Care

It used to be, back in the good old days, that a permanent full time employee at a company was, believe it or not, an actual employee of the company. That employee was entitled to health insurance, vacation, retirement benefits, raises, and other perks. Now, employees rarely are employed by the actual company. Although they work in full-time, permanent positions, they are officially employed by seperate agencies. The agencies are responsible for providing health benefits, although in most cases they find creative ways around it through strict limits on the length of contracts, making sure employment is not consistent enough to qualify.

Aside from the short-term effects, I believe these agencies will have the long-term effect of driving down wages and eliminating benefits in permanent positions as well. Untimately, the workplace is becoming increasingly hostile to the health and well-being of employees everywhere. Employers are no longer compelled to make sacrifices for the sake of worker safety and morale, but rather employees are expected to make any and all personal sacrifices possible for the sake of company profit.

It is claimed that this trend is a result of health insurance being simply too costly for employers. This has led to many companies requiring physical examinations as a condition for employment. Some companies even terminate employees for smoking, even if they don't smoke while on the clock. I wonder how far they will take this? I have asthma. Will I, one day, be unable to find employment simply because health insurance for me would cost too much?

It is estimated that 18,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance. This is not a result of being denied emergency care, since hospitals are required to treat all life-threatening emergencies, but rather a result of a lack of early treatment. I am a good example of this. My asthma is considered "under control" if I need to use my inhaler for sudden attacks no more than once or twice per week. Before I lost health insurance when I graduated from college three years ago, I met this standard. Now, when I am lucky enough to have asthma medication, I need to use my inhaler 2-3 times per day for sudden attacks due to a lack of consistent treatment.

It seems the best way to address this issue is through some form of national health care. The United States currently spends more per-capita on health care than countries which have a national health care system [link]. I believe this is due in a large part to the completely unregulated pharmaceutical industry. In countries such as Canada, which spends slightly more than half what the US spends per-capita on health care, the government has strict regulations on what pharmaceutical companies can charge for medications.

While I do believe that national health care would put the Temp Agencies out of business, it remains a far-fetched plan, since the corporate interests opposed to it hold so much power. There have been other positive developments, such as a Temp Worker's Union in San Francisco, but it seems there has been little, if any success. In the case of Hughes v. Microsoft, it was ruled that Microsoft was required to provide certain benefits to what it deemed "common-law" employees, or employees who are in essence employees of Microsoft, regardless of who their official employer may be.

Manpower claims to have placed 2.5 million workers in temporary positions in the year 2004 [link]. This is a growing problem, and is threatening the rights that workers fought so hard for throughout history.