Seeing shades of gray in plight of Delphi retirees

Seeing shades of gray in plight of Delphi retirees

EDITOR:

I have ambivalent feelings about the state of affairs of retired Delphi employees. It is blatantly unfair that former salaried employees of Delphi are losing retirement benefits. Many of them undoubtedly chose to stay at Delphi because of the company’s promise to take care of them for the rest of their lives. Some were encouraged to retire after 30 years of service with the promise that the company would pay them near full pension benefits while providing full medical insurance coverage. Who among us would not accept this offer to retire when we were in our late 40s or 50s? Delphi’s bankruptcy subsequently negated these promises. This tragedy involves two losses, pension income and medical insurance.

As far as the loss of pension income is concerned, it is patently unfair to use the tax money paid by those who must work until 66 years of age to subsidize the incomes of those who have retired as much as 15 years earlier. The Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. will mitigate the loss of pension income for many if not most retirees. For those so young that the PBGC pension payments will be too little on which to live, we should provide job placement services and/or job training as well as provide some limited form of temporary unemployment compensation.

The loss of medical insurance is different because of the absurd state of health care in our country, especially regarding non-insurable pre-existing conditions. Fairness dictates that all Delphi retirees younger than 65 should be provided medical insurance (a version of Medicare or Medicaid?) at a reasonable cost until they can find employment that will provide medical insurance. For those old enough to qualify for Medicare, they would join the rest of us in paying for Supplemental Medicare Insurance.

Former Delphi employees are not the only victims of bankruptcy. Two of my customers (both were Delphi Packard suppliers) have gone out of business in the last three years while owing me a substantial amount of money. Fair? No. Should the taxpayer compensate me for my loss? Absolutely not. One of the fallacies that we have been led to believe is that the government can and should fix everything. Sometimes, as truly awful as it is, stuff just happens.

ROBERT F. MOLLIC

Liberty Township