America’s recovery requires increasing well-paid secure jobs while cutting costs, and we have been on the wrong path.
Desperate managers, ever fearful of the bottom line, have felt the necessity to weed out more and more employees decimating our middle-class. These are the workers who pay the taxes necessary for economic growth.
Once these men and women are out of work their company may save money, but their contribution to society has become a liability. The usual practice of cutting bottom-line costs by downsizing creates a cancer. Cost-effectiveness has addressed one problem and established another.
Some suggestions:
Corporate America and small business America cannot make profit without cutting costs. Downsizing the work force is not always the best answer. Cost-effectiveness is often mismanaged when CEO’s seek short-term profit at the expense of long term planning.
The excessive cost of over-paid ineffective executives should be a first consideration for efficiency. Example: Boeing is losing money with continued delays in delivering ordered Dreamliners. Reassembled components are manufactured elsewhere to cut labor costs. Frequently these components are improperly made, with missing parts or faulty construction.
When this happens local engineers and machinists have to solve the problem and find the hardware to complete a component that was not ready to assemble. Boeing engineers and machinists are to be praised. Shortsighted management is not cost-effective.
Inefficient health care in America cripples economic recovery. We rank 36th internationally in infant mortality and fall far behind other industrialized nations in general health care, yet our annual medical cost per person far exceeds other nations.
We can no longer afford the escalating costs of poor health care. President Obama’s “Prescription for America” addresses this problem recognizing that administrative expense is far too costly. Currently medical facilities spend 10 percent to 20 percent on administration. Obama would like to cut this to 3 percent, the bookkeeping cost of Medicare and his suggested optional government run medical insurance (which is essentially the same plan insuring members of Congress).
I believe private plans can also cut costs and compete. My current private one seems to do this. Before I changed plans two years ago covering my monthly medicines cost me three times as much. And my medical care was inefficient. My records are now computerized and immediately available. I have quick and easy communication with specialists by phone or e-mail. Having affordable insured medical care is a great comfort to me.
It won’t be easy, but I believe we can reclaim jobs and insure American health care.
Bob Olson, Bellevue
