Like the worker's comp cop-out and the so-called 80 percent subsidy of the Port of Long Beach's green-washed truck plan, The Road questioned the afterthought nature of a concession requirement that simply asserted trucking companies must "provide proof that health insurance was made available to all its drivers."

That vague bullet point was enough to earn a gold star and zero scrutiny from the Press-Telegram ed board last February. Not only was Long Beach averting a lawsuit, the editorialists prematurely gushed, but "independent drivers and employees alike will be entitled to health insurance, and the licensed carriers they work for will be responsible for seeing that their trucks meet tough standards for both clean air and safety."

As it turns out, being "entitled" to health care (if we're talking about the affordable, quality kind) is especially tricky in a fragmented industry that lacks a real employer/employee relationship, a consultant retained to study the issue repeatedly told Long Beach commissioners yesterday.

Ah, the irony. You can read more on Alliant Insurance Services's Mike Menzia's presentation in the aptly headlined "Few Truckers Can Afford Insurance" story here.

Rather than say "we told you so" again, let's just say it's becoming painfully clear that the trucking companies are off the hook and those vague "health care options" were nothing more than a used car sales pitch for a not-clean truck program.

Studies show that drivers face grave health risks from choking on their own diesel exhaust. Because insurers would be hesitant to underwrite the risk for independent contractor drivers, some 40 percent of whom have pre-existing conditions like asthma, this scheme merely allows the Port to promote the following "options" to drivers:

1) Buy into a "Wal-Mart style" plan with premiums so expensive that low-wage immigrant drivers can't hope to afford it. (Their lack of purchasing power, by the way, was the same reason the Port consultant dismissed the viability of a market-based plan. Wonder how those same drivers will make their new $700 monthly truck payments plus interest rates based on their own credit score, courtesy of Long Beach.)

2) Enroll the entire family in a statewide government program. [Note: seventy-six percent of the 16,800 San Pedro Bay port drivers are raising young sons and daughters in this diesel-death zone, where 1 in 5 children suffer from asthma.]

Band-aid fix, or rubbing salt in the wound? Hard to tell, because the only thing these "health care options" provide is a guarantee that taxpayers will continue to foot the bill, while thousands of port drivers and their families will remain exactly as they are now: uninsured.