--- In ibmretiree@yahoogroups.com, zer0t0l <no_reply@...> wrote:
>
> letter rationalizing the "slight boost" in medical costs and premiums
> but so far he is nowhere to be found or heard from. Could it be because
> of the disgraceful increases in premiums( mine was 300%- I guess I was

Given this year's increases exceeding any I have seen to date many
IBMers will in the next few years be faced with the cruelest of
decisions; to drop IBM health care and go to local clinics and ERs as
low income and indigent people do today because there is no other way
they can pay these premiums and still live an independent life.

We all have seen the greed of these execs and have railed against it
verbally and to some extent legally. Greed that has as its core the
premise that if they can take away wages and benefits from employees
and retirees it will personally benefit them not the traditional
rewards given execs of growing the business.

We are now entering a whole new era of this greed; the conscious and
planned total denial of IBM medical benefits that were inferred and
verbally promised to many of us as legacy retirees of IBM. This is
being done to us in the context of a very profitable corporation with
regal bonuses to its current execs unprecedented in business history
to retirees who have no time or opportunity to adjust to their new
circumstances.

That will in turn result in the needless future sickness and in some
cases premature death of some of your fellow IBMers.

These execs are now approaching the deserved appellation of murderers.
Other than a letter do you really expect them to admit and justify
such a crime?