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Subject:
From:
Albrecht Marignoni <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
St. John's University Cerebral Palsy List
Date:
Tue, 15 Jul 2003 18:18:25 +0200
Content-Type:
text/plain
Parts/Attachments:
text/plain (417 lines)
I am searching for disabled workers and managers
in UK. But itīs not so easy to get people who will
work in a new company.

I do not think that in Europe disabled workers
are more expensive than non disabled.

Albrecht
--
Albrecht Marignoni
orthoPoint Network
http://www.orthopoint.net





----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael H. Collis" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2003 6:12 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Firms Fire Disabled Workers to Save Health-Care Costs]


>   Comments?
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Firms Fire Disabled Workers to Save Health-Care Costs
> Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2003 08:10:10 -0400
> From: Justice For All Moderator <[log in to unmask]>
> Organization: Justice For All E-Mail Network
> To: [log in to unmask]
>
>
>
> "Firms Fire Disabled Workers to Save Health-Care Costs"
>
> Here's a sobering article from the front page of
> yesterday's Wall Street Journal, highlighting the
> persistent barrier that lack of quality health care poses
> to disabled Americans who want to work. The story openly
> discusses some corporations' approach to managing slow
> economic times - firing people with disabilities who have
> high health care costs.  Curiously, there's no mention of
> the Americans with Disabilities Act in the article and how
> these actions might be prohibited discrimination under the
> ADA (violation of another statute is mentioned).  You can
> contact the author, Joseph Pereira, at
> [log in to unmask]
>
> Jonathan Young
> JFA Editor, AAPD
>
> =========================
>
> To Save on Health-Care Costs, Firms Fire Disabled Workers
>
> Policy Shift at Polaroid Leads to Scrimping, New Worries
> for Extremely Sick Employees
> July 14, 2003
> PAGE ONE
> By JOSEPH PEREIRA
> Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
>
> As it was preparing the sale of its assets to Bank One
> Corp. last July, Polaroid Corp. sent a letter to 180
> disabled employees notifying them that they had been fired
> and their health, life and dental insurance were being
> terminated.
>
> At the time he received the letter, Nelson Tauriac, a
> Polaroid forklift operator for 21 years, was bed-ridden,
> his feet swollen to three times their normal size because
> of kidney disease. John Magenheimer, who had headed a
> Polaroid research laboratory, was recovering from surgery
> in which one of his ribs was removed so doctors could cut
> out a cancerous tumor pressing against his heart. Elizabeth
> Williams, a senior human-resources administrator, was at
> home, doubled over with pain from a form of lupus that
> attacks the lungs and muscles.
>
> "I couldn't believe this was happening," recalls Mr.
> Magenheimer, who says his wife showed him the letter as he
> lay "in a fog" from chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
> "How could Polaroid do this to me? For more than 20
> years I gave them everything I had."
>
>
> Across the corporate landscape, disabled workers are
> becoming an increasingly common casualty of the drive to
> cut costs. As recently as three to five years ago most
> companies paid health benefits for the long-term
> disabled until they were 65 years old, according to James
> Curcio, a senior consultant for Washington Business Group
> on Health, a trade association that helps companies contain
> health-care costs. At 65, federal Medicare benefits
> kick in.
>
> But as health-insurance costs and the number of disabled
> employees climb, more companies are firing them. A Mercer
> Human Resource Consulting study last year found that 27% of
> the 723 companies surveyed dismiss employees as soon as
> they go on long-term disability and that 24% dismiss them
> at a set time thereafter, usually six to 12 months. (Dow
> Jones & Co., which publishes The Wall Street Journal,
> terminates employees six months afterward.) The survey
> found 15% keep the disabled on as employees with benefits
> until age 65.
>
> Mr. Magenheimer and the other employees fired by Polaroid
> were on long-term disability leave because of injuries or
> illnesses that left them too incapacitated to work. They
> are entitled to be compensated at 60% to 70% of their
> regular pay through a combination of social-security
> disability benefits and payouts from disability-insurance
> policies purchased by Polaroid.
>
> They still receive that money. But the loss of their other
> benefits -- especially their health and life insurance --
> has brought them additional financial burdens at a time
> when they already are struggling with reduced income and
> the ravages of cancer, heart disease and other serious
> conditions.
>
> The federal law known as COBRA mandates that they can keep
> the health insurance they had at Polaroid for 18 months
> after their dismissal. Some companies pay the premiums, but
> most, like Polaroid, require employees to pick up the tab
> themselves. Disabled workers can purchase Medicare coverage
> after 18 months. Both kinds of coverage cost thousands of
> dollars a year, which many disabled workers can ill afford.
> Because people on long-term disability leave continue to
> receive a portion of their salaries, they are typically not
> eligible for the Medicaid program that offers poor
> Americans health insurance.
>
> Kevin Pond, a Polaroid spokesman, says that Bank One took
> over Polaroid with the understanding that the new
> management would decide whom to hire and whom to let go.
> "Even though the old Polaroid maintained their employee-
> like status, the [workers on long-term disability] were not
> real employees," he says. In response to a letter to
> Polaroid by U.S. Rep. William Delahunt of Massachusetts,
> who had written on behalf of constituents who worked there,
> Polaroid general counsel Neal Goldman noted that the
> company had preserved the benefits as long as it could,
> despite "enormous pressure to dramatically reduce costs"
> during bankruptcy.
>
> The disability-payment squeeze is likely to continue for
> companies and their employees. Some 5.5 million people
> received long-term disability benefits last year, according
> to the U.S. Department of Labor, a 62% jump from 1992.
> The reasons for the big rise aren't completely understood,
> but the most cited explanation is an aging work force.
>
> Bankruptcies and takeovers often spur companies to fire
> disabled workers. When International Steel Group Inc.
> acquired the assets of LTV Corp. last year, it rehired many
> of the able-bodied workers who had been dismissed in
> LTV's bankruptcy proceeding. It didn't rehire the hundreds
> of employees on disability. When MMI Co., a medical
> consulting and insurance firm in Deerfield, Ill., in 1999
> acquired Applied Risk Management Inc. of Oakland, Calif.,
> which administers worker's compensation programs for
> companies, it only hired ARM employees who weren't on
> medical or extended leave. Five employees on long-term
> disability leave weren't hired.
>
> MMI has since been acquired by St. Paul Cos., an insurance
> concern. A spokeswoman declined to comment. Mitch Hecht,
> vice president of external affairs at International Steel,
> says, "It's strictly an arithmetic fact that the profits
> are not being generated to cover the costs of all the
> health care programs of workers from the past." The company
> views the plight of the disabled workers as a tragedy and
> calls on the government "to come up with a broad solution
> to fix the problem," says Mr. Hecht.
>
> Polaroid began its downward spiral in the mid-1990s, as
> digital cameras and cheap, one-hour developing ravaged its
> niche of instant photography. With nearly $1 billion in
> debt, Polaroid filed for bankruptcy-court protection in
> October 2001. Nine months later, One Equity Partners, a
> Bank One investment arm, acquired its assets. "Under the
> asset purchase agreement, employees on long-term disability
> will not be hired by One Equity Partners," Polaroid wrote
> in a July 2002 letter to the affected workers.
>
> Ms. Williams, who has been on disability since 1988 because
> of her lupus and diabetes, says "people in the group have a
> multiplicity of medical problems." Many are in their 50s.
> Elaine Johnson, 59, of Attleboro, Mass., suffers from blood
> clotting and heart problems and nearly died from a
> pulmonary embolism earlier this year. Another, Paul Day,
> 61, of Billerica, Mass., has undergone several surgeries to
> remove cancerous growths in his leg and kidney.
>
> Ms. Williams recruited some of her ex-colleagues to hire
> attorney Harvey Schwartz, who filed a discrimination case
> last week in federal court in Boston. Polaroid and One
> Equity "got together and consciously planned to
> discriminate against people who were receiving" long-term
> disability benefits, says Mr. Schwartz, of Boston. The new
> Polaroid hired able-bodied workers, but their disabled
> colleagues "were intentionally not hired because they were
> disabled," Mr. Schwartz added. A spokesman for Polaroid,
> under One Equity's management, declined to comment on the
> suit.
>
> It isn't the first time disabled workers have gone to court
> on the issue. Denice Lessard, a compensation analyst for
> Applied Risk Management, had been on long-term disability
> for three years because of a work-related spine injury,
> when MMI acquired the company and she was fired. A three-
> judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San
> Francisco ruled in Ms. Lessard's favor, stating that
> discrimination had occurred. By firing the disabled
> workers, MMI was effectively punishing them "for exercising
> their rights under an employee benefit plan," the court
> wrote. That is illegal under the Employee Retirement Income
> Security Act, which guarantees employees the right to use
> their benefits.
>
> The case was sent back to the district court, which had
> earlier ruled in the company's favor. MMI subsequently
> settled, and Ms. Lessard's benefits have been restored,
> says her attorney Laurence F. Padway.
>
> In Polaroid's good years, the 1970s through the early
> 1990s, surveys frequently rated the company as one of the
> 100 best companies to work for. The company paid full
> tuition for employees pursuing college degrees and provided
> free medical services at headquarters and other sites with
> a staff that included four doctors, 13 nurses and about
> half a dozen family and divorce counselors.
>
> Polaroid took pride in supporting employees who were sick
> or got hurt on the job. Short-term disability compensation,
> at 100% of pay for up to a year, was among the best in the
> country. Employees on long-term disability were permitted
> to remain with the company until 65. When employees went on
> long-term disability, the company even picked up the tab
> for the portion of health and life insurance premiums that
> were typically deducted from Polaroid paychecks.
>
> At the time of One Equity's offer, Polaroid had about 8,000
> employees. It now has less than 6,000, says a person
> familiar with the company. The company no longer reports
> results, but people familiar with the revamped company's
> business say that it is now profitable. The company has
> introduced new products and most employees received a bonus
> last Christmas, says Karl Farmer, chairman of a court-
> appointed committee that looks after Polaroid retirees'
> interests.
>
> For many disabled employees, things haven't worked out as
> well. On receiving news of his termination last summer, Mr.
> Tauriac, the long-time forklift operator, found it would
> cost him $862 a month to continue the health insurance he
> had been getting free.
>
> That left Mr. Tauriac with a difficult choice. He could
> continue to live in his $1,100-a-month, two-bedroom
> apartment in New Iberia, La., without health insurance, or
> keep his health insurance and move out. On his monthly
> disability income of $1,960 he couldn't afford both. Even
> with the company's health plan, his co-payments for 16
> prescription drugs and doctors' visits had been running up
> to $350 a month. In addition to heart problems Mr. Tauriac
> was suffering from hypertension and diabetes, and needed
> kidney dialysis three times a week.
>
> After deliberating for a month, Mr. Tauriac and his wife
> Gladys reluctantly decided to move to a modest cottage
> owned by her brother, who discounted the rent to $400 a
> month. Over the next six weeks he was hospitalized five
> times for ailments including chest pains, shortness of
> breath and high-blood pressure.
>
> On Oct. 15, 2002, his feet swollen and filled with blood
> clots, he died. He was 61 years old. "He used to wake up in
> the middle of the night and say to me, 'I don't know what's
> happening to me, lovely,' " Mrs. Tauriac recalls. She
> believes "it was the stress" that made him take a turn for
> the worse -- "no money, no house, no peace."
>
> Had he died before Polaroid fired him, Mrs. Tauriac would
> have received $77,220 from a life insurance policy that
> paid 1.5 times his salary. But the policy ended with his
> employment. Mrs. Tauriac says she couldn't have afforded
> the funeral without a gift from her son, who is in graduate
> school.
>
> Herself a Polaroid employee before taking early retirement
> in 1995, she receives a total of about $800 a month from
> her pension and survivor benefits. Of that, $381 goes for
> health insurance, which doesn't cover drugs. So Mrs.
> Tauriac says she skips prescriptions for hypertension and a
> heart condition. She has been moving from relative to
> relative to save on rent. At 59, she has concluded, she
> soon will have to find work.
>
> "Life today is a far cry from the way it used to be a
> decade ago," when she and her husband lived in suburban
> Easton, Mass., she says. "Between the two of us we made
> $90,000 a year. We sent our son to Boston College and we
> thought life was good. I never thought I was going to end
> up this way."
>
> When Mr. Magenheimer was dismissed, he lost his health
> insurance, although he was still covered under his wife's
> policy, provided by the school where she teaches. He
> started looking to replace the life-insurance policy that
> he also lost, fearing his family would be left in a bind.
> He had a $1 million policy through Polaroid, including
> extra coverage for which he paid between $500 and $1,000 a
> year for 20 years. As director of the company's Materials
> and Chemical Analysis Laboratory, Mr. Magenheimer had
> earned $110,000 a year.
>
> Diagnosed with a deadly form of skin cancer in 1992, Mr.
> Magenheimer worked for six years following the diagnosis.
> He worked longer than he would have liked, he says, in part
> because he wanted to keep the life insurance. To keep up
> with the work, he took an afternoon nap and then often
> worked late. He injected himself with anticancer drugs that
> he kept in a cooler at the lab. "It made you feel like you
> had the worst case of the flu, but it gave you energy," he
> recalls, sitting in his dining room of his suburban home.
>
> He went on long-term disability leave in 1998. Treatments
> did some good, he says, but tumors kept resurfacing, and
> his condition didn't improve enough to return to work. He
> had just undergone surgery when the news came about
> his dismissal. From a Boston hospital bed, he telephoned
> insurance agents, searching for a new life policy. Many
> asked him whether he was "nuts" and told him no one so sick
> was insurable, he says.
>
> He was so frustrated he would scream into the phone and end
> up drained from the fighting. After several weeks, Mr.
> Magenheimer says, he threatened to bring a discrimination
> case against the insurance company that covered him
> at Polaroid unless it extended the policy. It agreed to
> $500,000 in coverage, for $20,000 a year in premiums. To
> make the payments, he took out a third mortgage on his
> home, adding $100,000 in debt to the $125,000 he already
> owed on the previous mortgages.
>
> Sally Ferrari, another of the terminated Polaroid
> employees, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1996
> and went on long-term disability a year later. The former
> executive assistant to a marketing director is 59. Her
> husband John is two years older and worked for 31 years at
> Polaroid as a human resources executive before leaving in
> the same year for another job. At Polaroid the two would
> meet for lunch whenever possible.
>
> Mr. Ferrari says he would have retired by now to take care
> of his wife, but has to keep working to afford her care and
> health insurance. He said he is "bitter" about having to
> spend his days away from his wife in the time remaining
> before her dementia puts her beyond reach.
>
> Patients who contract Alzheimer's as early as his wife
> usually decline rapidly, Mr. Ferrari has learned. Many are
> dead within eight years, according to the Alzheimer's
> Research Foundation, "But she's got a strong constitution,"
> says Mr. Ferrari, holding back tears. "I'm hoping she can
> make it to 65."
>
> Write to Joseph Pereira at [log in to unmask]
>
> # # #
>
> =====================
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