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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.”