Noviembre 22, 2009
The struggle for healthcare reform has reached a new stage, with the House of Representatives having passed a healthcare reform bill and the Senate having voted to proceed to work on the newly-combined bill in the coming weeks. After analyzing the details of each plan, it is clear that neither of them is yet satisfactory, despite some meritorious aspects. Neither plan adequately protects working people from employers who would use the legislation to cancel existing healthcare coverage and thereby compel workers to buy their own insurance. The House bill does provide steeper penalties on employers than the Senate legislation, but in neither case are the protections anywhere near what will be needed in any final legislation. The Senate provisions in this regard are so minuscule that they are likely to create incentives for employers to cancel existing employee health coverage.
As to whether or not employers might try to use passage of the current legislation to exploit this provision -- or other advantages to them contained in the current legislation -- it is instructive to look at what happened in the weeks just after the passage of Medicare in July 1965. The Medicare bill passed over the furious resistance of the medical establishment, and besides providing hospitalization and medical care for those over 65 years of age, the bill included expansion of retirement and disability benefits. As reported in the September 27, 1965 edition of the UE NEWS, no sooner was the ink dry on the Medicare bill than the General Electric Company (GE) announced its intention of slashing its then retiree health insurance benefits by 79 percent, along with announcing reductions in its meager pension benefits to likewise offset improvements provided under the new legislation.
The UE NEWS characterized GE’s move as “An Ugly Grab.” Other employers tried to follow the lead of GE in their announcement, triggering a massive multi-year battle at the bargaining table to defend our retirees from this opportunistic attack on pensioners. Our effort to defend retirees was largely successful owing to the united resistance of UE’s membership of that period, but it was made clear once again that corporations and employers would use the law to shamelessly shirk their responsibilities if offered the opportunity. We can be assured that the corporations and employers of today will do the same. While workers will read the legislation to look for the solutions to their problems, the boss will read the same text to look for chances to shift costs, cancel coverages, and put the money back into their own pocket.
The current Senate bill also contains the disgraceful provision that would open the door to the first-ever levy of income taxes on a portion of the value of health insurance benefits, which must not be allowed to become part of any final healthcare bill. The overall costs for coverages and out-of-pocket expenses in both bills are also too high for working people who are already burdened by falling wages, astronomical unemployment levels, and a sky-high cost of living. Whether these and other deficiencies can be fixed in the coming weeks will determine the ultimate fate of the legislation. Much improvement is in order if the final plan is to be worthy of our support.
Our union has supported the movement for national healthcare since our founding in the 1930's, and our resolve to see that final goal is as strong as ever. UE members have not struggled and fought to settle for a final “reform” program which would be more costly and cumbersome than what we suffer with today. And unlike too many, we do not put the interests of “reform” proponents ahead of those of our members. We also do not forget to expose the enemies of reform, and the defenders of the existing private health insurance racket. These would include virtually every Congressional Republican, some Democrats, the insurance companies, big business, and those degraded forces who would wreck the health care reform initiative now before us for the sake of some perceived political gain.
As we prepare for the next phase of the battle on Capitol Hill it is well worth reviewing the current UE Policy resolution from our recent National Convention, Healthcare for All.
As to whether or not employers might try to use passage of the current legislation to exploit this provision -- or other advantages to them contained in the current legislation -- it is instructive to look at what happened in the weeks just after the passage of Medicare in July 1965. The Medicare bill passed over the furious resistance of the medical establishment, and besides providing hospitalization and medical care for those over 65 years of age, the bill included expansion of retirement and disability benefits. As reported in the September 27, 1965 edition of the UE NEWS, no sooner was the ink dry on the Medicare bill than the General Electric Company (GE) announced its intention of slashing its then retiree health insurance benefits by 79 percent, along with announcing reductions in its meager pension benefits to likewise offset improvements provided under the new legislation.
The UE NEWS characterized GE’s move as “An Ugly Grab.” Other employers tried to follow the lead of GE in their announcement, triggering a massive multi-year battle at the bargaining table to defend our retirees from this opportunistic attack on pensioners. Our effort to defend retirees was largely successful owing to the united resistance of UE’s membership of that period, but it was made clear once again that corporations and employers would use the law to shamelessly shirk their responsibilities if offered the opportunity. We can be assured that the corporations and employers of today will do the same. While workers will read the legislation to look for the solutions to their problems, the boss will read the same text to look for chances to shift costs, cancel coverages, and put the money back into their own pocket.
The current Senate bill also contains the disgraceful provision that would open the door to the first-ever levy of income taxes on a portion of the value of health insurance benefits, which must not be allowed to become part of any final healthcare bill. The overall costs for coverages and out-of-pocket expenses in both bills are also too high for working people who are already burdened by falling wages, astronomical unemployment levels, and a sky-high cost of living. Whether these and other deficiencies can be fixed in the coming weeks will determine the ultimate fate of the legislation. Much improvement is in order if the final plan is to be worthy of our support.
Our union has supported the movement for national healthcare since our founding in the 1930's, and our resolve to see that final goal is as strong as ever. UE members have not struggled and fought to settle for a final “reform” program which would be more costly and cumbersome than what we suffer with today. And unlike too many, we do not put the interests of “reform” proponents ahead of those of our members. We also do not forget to expose the enemies of reform, and the defenders of the existing private health insurance racket. These would include virtually every Congressional Republican, some Democrats, the insurance companies, big business, and those degraded forces who would wreck the health care reform initiative now before us for the sake of some perceived political gain.
As we prepare for the next phase of the battle on Capitol Hill it is well worth reviewing the current UE Policy resolution from our recent National Convention, Healthcare for All.