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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 2019)
PAGE 8 | November 1, 2019 | NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS ...Labor enters debate over Medicare For All From Page 1 a narrative that union members would lose out. Health insurance benefits are one of the hallmarks of union membership: 94% of union-rep- resented workers have em- ployer-provided medical bene- fits, compared with 67% of non-union workers. In the build- ing trades, union-sponsored health and welfare trusts provide high-quality health benefits that are the pride and joy of the union and employer trustees who oversee them. Among Democrats running for president in 2020, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Julian Castro, and Pete Buttigieg have said they support Medicare For All. But in several Democratic pres- idential debates this year, candi- dates who oppose it have zeroed in on the argument that union members would lose their union health plans under the proposal. “If they like their employer- based insurance, which a lot of unions broke their neck to get … they shouldn’t have to give it up,” former vice president Joe “When someone stands in front of the country and says that single payer is a threat to those with great union plans, I want to scream.” — Flight attendants union president Sara Nelson Biden said in July. At the national level, the In- ternational Association of Fire Fighters is the only union out- right opposed to Medicare For All. But national union leaders, including AFL-CIO President Rich Trumka, have expressed hesitation about eliminating the union role in health care. Dudzic and other proponents don’t see it that way. They argue that relieving union employers of the burden of providing health in- surance would free up in the neighborhood of $18,000 a year that could go to wages or other benefits. None of the current Medicare For All bills in Con- gress would outright require that employers pass the savings on to workers, but Sanders says he wants to modify his bill to do that. “When someone stands in front of the country and says that single payer is a threat to those with great union plans, I want to scream,” said Sara Nel- son, national president of the Association of Flight Attendants at the Portland strategy confer- ence. “We spend more time [at the bargaining table] talking about health care than any other issue. And every time we go there, it’s not about improving health care coverage, it’s about having more costs for the em- ployees.” Under the current system, U.S. health costs have risen dra- matically. Average annual premi- ums for employer-sponsored family coverage reached $20,576 this year, a 54% increase from 10 years ago. And deductibles have doubled in that time on average. “At nearly every negotiation we enter, the company informs our members that the burden of rising health care costs are eat- ing up a larger and larger portion of our total compensation,” said Machinists International Presi- dent Robert Martinez Jr. in a Feb. 27 letter urging members of Congress to sign on to Medicare For All. According to a study pub- lished last year in the Journal of the American Medical Associa- tion, the United States is spend- ing nearly twice as much on medical care as 10 other high- income countries — not be- cause Americans are sicker or use more health services, but be- cause of higher doctor salaries, higher prices for drugs and med- ical devices, and vastly higher administrative costs. By one es- timate, as many as 2 million people are employed to process (or deny) insurance claims; that’s an administrative cost bur- den no other country comes close to. Under the Medicare For All proposals, those administrative costs would be expected to drop dramatically, and the govern- ment would use its negotiating power to obtain lower prices for drugs and medical services. Moreover, Jayapal’s H.R. 1384 in the House and Sanders’ S. 1129 in the Senate wouldn’t just expand Medicare to cover all U.S. residents; they would also improve Medicare benefits by adding dental, vision, and hearing coverage and eliminat- ing premiums and cost-sharing for patients. But there’s no question they’d disrupt the current status quo: The bills would retain the Veter- ans Administration and the In- dian Health Service, but would largely eliminate the system in which employers and individu- als pay private health insurance companies to act as middlemen. “The time has come to take health care off the bargaining table by making it a right for all Americans,” wrote Washington State Labor Council President Larry Brown in a March op-ed. “Health care has become the biggest cause of strikes, lock- outs and concession bargaining. Unions routinely trade off wage increases and other benefits in order to maintain basic health care for their members and re- tirees.”
