I don’t think healthcare for employees comes anywhere close to the list of top expenses for a company as large as Boeing.
Based on the article, it sounds like the expertise of more experienced workers was preventing the reckless management from shipping poorly tested products earlier, and this was the actual reason for terminating them.
Which is why healthcare and pension shouldn't be paid by the employer, employers shouldn't be punished for keeping old people around.
If someone doubled the workers salary to leave you wouldn't say "but the company loyally gave you a job for 10 years, how can you desert them?", same thing here. We should incentivize companies to do the right thing, not punish them for it.
Doubt anything at Boeing would have changed if everyone had state healthcare. These pernicious decisions weren't driven by healthcare at all. Younger employees can be more easily coerced to an executive's vision, forced to break compliance laws and also be paid lesser than senior folks.
This is the terrible rot of modern business culture - all driven by short-term profit making at the cost of long-term sustainability.
