How the GM workers strike makes Bernie Sanders's case for Medicare-for-all

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

United Auto Workers at General Motors has long had what has been called the “gold standard” in union-negotiated health care plans: Workers pay little to nothing toward co-payments and deductibles, and each employee covers roughly 3 percent of the cost. For comparison, the average worker directly pays 28 percent of health care costs. It’s a benefit the union was able to largely keep intact through the auto industry crisis in 2009, and it has sacrificed wage and pension raises to maintain it. This is the kind of health care plan Biden is talking about when he warns about Medicare-for-all.

This argument is playing out in real time. Thousands of GM employees are on strike this week in a bid for better wages and benefits and to address concerns for temporary workers. GM dealt its employees’ union, the United Auto Workers, an incredible blow on Tuesday; Employees’ generous health care plan is being used as leverage to get workers to cross the picket line.

GM has cut off health benefits to striking employees, shifting the cost to the workers — and in turn the union. UAW has offered striking members COBRA health care, which allows them to continue medical and prescription drugs coverage, but it doesn’t include dental, vision, hearing, and accident insurance.

The company had essentially spelled out Sanders’s counterargument for him. As employers use health care costs as a negotiation tactic, this kind of thing is bound to happen more. And for Sanders, it’s the perfect case for doing away with the current system.

(snip)


https://www.vox.com/2019/9/18/20872116/general-motors-uaw-strike-medicare-for-all-biden-union

[brooklynite]

1. Is UAW ASKING for MfA? Or do their members want to hold on to their existing coverage?

[bluewater]

2. Let's poll that picket line to start with!

It would be interesting to see an in-depth poll of union workers on how satisfied they are with their healthcare and what direction they want to take going forward.

one question should be:

"Would you rather have your employer's contribution to your healthcare insurance show up in your paycheck instead and pay for Medicare for All at a lower overall cost?"

For some reason, I doubt that question would be asked.

[brooklynite]

3. Can you promise that it would?

[bluewater]

4. Why shouldn't it?

I am sure the IRS has DETAILED records of what corporations deduct for employee health insurance.

Why should the corporations be allowed to keep that money going forward unless corrupt politicians allow them too?

Oh, sure, I bet a lot of corporations, with their lobbyists and lawyers, will want to try to keep it, but we don't have to let them get away with that. Do we?


Why would any union allow the corporations to get away with outright thievery?

[brooklynite]

6. ACA requires provision of medical coverage (if 50+ employees) to full-time workers under ACA...

Once ACA disappears, there's no legal way to say that what employers USED to spend on health care has to go to employees.

[bluewater]

7. The new law would though.

Medicare for All will require new legislation, wouldn't it?

And that new legislation would also be binding law.

If the issue goes to the courts, I am sure the legality of such a provision in a Medicare for All Bill would prevail.

In any case, the legality of the law would certainly be litigated before it's provisions are put into effect, so we would see.

[comradebillyboy]

8. That law doesn't exist right now and hasn't got enough

congressional support to ever exist.

[bluewater]

9. shrug neither does a public option, so let's all give up?

Ok, I get your point, but right now BOTH Medicare for All and ACA with a public option face stiff opposition from the health insurance industry and the rThugs.

All we can do is to fight them or give up. The status quo is untenable, we have to work hard for change.

Personally, I expect we will start with incremental improvements and build on those over time.

But to reject either Medicare for All or the ACA with a public option out of hand, as the health insurance industry wants to, is unacceptable.

[JI7]

12. but ACA does exist

[Celerity]

14. until the SCOTUS says it doesn't

https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/10/politics/obamacare-supreme-court-2020/index.html

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-challenge-to-obamacare-and-a-legal-question-does-what-politicians-say-matter

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering-care/patient-support-advocacy/texas-v-azar-decision

[NYMinute]

20. That won't even pass a committee -- and it has to pass 4 committees nt

[TexasTowelie]

26. Can you be certain that a Medicare for All Bill will prevail

and not be declared unconstitutional? The Supreme Court came to a 5-4 decision about the constitutionality of the ACA and the court is more conservative than when that decision was made.

[forthemiddle]

29. I don't take my company insurance

But I don’t get their contribution in my paycheck now. Why would that change in the future?

I don’t know of any company that does that if you don’t take the insurance.

[Tennessee Tuxedo]

10. I am union

Have great health insurance for me and my family, pay very little for it. I prefer to keep my own plan over MfA. Many union families I think will have the same opinion, could be wrong?

[fleabiscuit]

11. Interested. What insurance plan is that? nt

[Celerity]

13. lol, you DO pay for it, it is called a vastly lower wage paid to you in the contract due to the fact

your employer is paying up the arse for a very expensive plan.

MFA will never pass for decades due to the RW tectonic shift to the electoral landscape by gerrymandering and systemic voter suppression, BUT anyone who thinks that the private, for-profit US healthcare system is not ripping off trillions from the overall populace is delusional.

You think the US per capita spending on healthcare (by FAR the highest in the world) is bad now, wait until the 3.6 or so trillion per year spent now becomes close to SIX trillion per year by around 2030.

Wealth extraction, that the name of the game, it sure isn't providing great health for a fair and efficient cost.

Dr. Billy Bigbollocks the specialist, and the pharma exec who legally bribes him off to make sure he is meeting quota on the scripts, and the insurance VP who makes sure that he himself always, always gets P-A-I-D whilst denying the fuck out legit claims, well, they all need NEW Lambos baby, vrooom vrooom.

[NYMinute]

19. Just as MFA is vastly lower take-home pay by increased taxes nt

[Celerity]

23. Not that MFA is ever going to pass, but the overall net cost would

be lower, probably vastly lower, for the majority of people. Also, and this is especially germane to the union workers, the large chunk of their paycheck that is now taken by the employer to pay for the healthcare plans would go back to the workers.

The whole point is moot anyway, as MFA is dead on arrival. I highly doubt even the Public Option will pass. Hell, we will be lucky to even claw back the ACA if the SCOTUS strikes the whole thing down next year.

[NYMinute]

24. "The cost would be lower" is MFA's illusion

No one has actually crunched the numbers.

[Celerity]

28. there are multiple studies out there that show it does, compared to what we would spend

going forward under the current system.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (the official government department) show that between 2018 to 2027 the US, under its current system, will spend close to 50 trillion USD for that 10 year period, with the 2027 level being close to 6 trillion for just that one year.

https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Statistics-Trends-and-Reports/NationalHealthExpendData/Downloads/ForecastSummary.pdf




So far, much of the analysis, some of it by right wing groups, some of it by left wing and centrists, show MFA costing somewhere between 32 trillion and 40 trillion when all US government spending on healthcare is factored in, and due to MFA taking over all but a tiny, tiny slice of the spending pie for all US healthcare, you are thus looking at a savings overall of between 6 to 14 trillion for just that 10 year period (depending on what you peg the MFA total cost to be.) I arrived at that number by assuming a full 10% of all US healthcare costs would NOT be covered by MFA, which I think is a very high number, BUT I did not want to be accused of tilting the playing field in MFA's favour.



Bottom line, none of this matters, as MFA is NEVER going to pass for probably decades, if ever. There will be literally WELL over 100 trillion dollars (probably closer to 125 trillion given the current rates of increase) spent by the US population as a whole over the next 20 years on total healthcare costs. That means trillions of dollars in profits. The systemic controllers in Big Healthcare (hospitals and doctors, etc), Big Insurance, and Big Pharma will never allow that to be taken away.

Our current system is broken, but I see almost no chance to totally fix it, the best we can hope for is to try and pass a public option and do something to contain the insane pharma prices that the US pays versus all other advanced nations in the world. I am very much a pessimist on the chances for a public option to even pass (as I have laid out multiple times before) and t is going to take a shit tonne of political capital to just slap down the rapacious pharma consortium. Furthermore, IF the SCOTUS next year strikes down the ACA in its entirely (and there is a damn good chance it does, unfortunately, and if not next year, sometime down the road), good luck even clawing back something similar to to it.

The political and social culture here in the US is simply too manipulated to move to any sort of truly efficient, truly universal healthcare, which I will end with by saying, MFA is NOT, by a long shot, the only way to get to.

Sanders and Warren are selling pipe-dreams (mainly because they will NEVER get their plans passed), all I am saying is that some form of their plans, or some other type of plan WOULD work. A shame we are not going to find out for any of the plans (any of the plans all of our candidates are pushing, plus many other types they are not), as the system itself will block it.

[NYMinute]

21. +1000 nt

[PatrickforO]

30. Unfortunately, due to the primacy of the shareholder doctrine, over the last several decades,

union membership has decreased significantly.

I'm fine with you keeping your union coverage - cool with me. But I want Medicare, because I have employer provided insurance in a non-union (actually anti-union) environment, and it is shitty, rationed healthcare with financially crippling copays.

That said, ANYONE who is elected will have to negotiate with both houses of Congress, and that negotiation will result in a compromise. Even though there is a lot of corporate money from big pharma and big health insurance lobbies lined up against even a public option, my guess, if we sweep in 2020 like I think we will, is that ACA will be fixed, including a strong individual mandate, mandatory coverage for pre-existing conditions, and high-deductible policies eliminated, as well as states being forced to expand Medicaid. AND a public option.

In our current corrupt situation, where those we elect ignore our interests and bow craven before corporate pressure and money, that's the best we'll get, I fear.

[MichMan]

5. The UAW has a $800 million dollar strike fund

I think the striking members wont need to worry about health insurance coverage

[fleabiscuit]

17. I doubt that would buy all members of the UAW even a years worth of insurance coverage.

Perhaps a plan of strategic strikes may have some legs.

[NYMinute]

22. The strike won't even last a few weeks nt

[myohmy2]

15. it sure does...

"...it’s the perfect case for doing away with the current system."

" “Under Medicare-for-all, whether you’re working, whether you’re not working, whether you go from one job to another job, it’s right there with you,” Sanders said at the event. "


https://berniesanders.com/issues/medicare-for-all/

...

[PDittie]

16. "If you like your plan, you can keep it"*

*subject to your employer's whims

[NYMinute]

18. BS won't get any union votes because of this

Nice try though

[JudyM]

25. That is making the case perfectly. The owners shouldn't have that kind of power over people's lives

Folks with medical issues in their families have no real choice if this is held over their heads.

[TexasTowelie]

27. The counter-argument to that is

that the workers can go find other jobs if they aren't satisfied with their compensation.

It is a conceit for anyone (from the entry-level custodian to the highest-paid CEO) to believe that they are not expendable. While I hope that the workers and union can negotiate an agreement that meets most of their demands, there is always a risk that things may turn out unfavorably when workers decide to strike. The union and the union members should be realistic that GM no longer has an insurable interest in the workers since they went on strike. Therefore, there is no reason for GM to provide any type of benefits to the workers who are not contributing to the profitability of the company.

Do I like that is true--no. However, my pragmatic side sees the rationale behind the business decision.

[JudyM]

31. Health care should not be in the purview of an employer to "negotiate."