This idea has been ricocheting around in my head for a while now. If the unions were stronger, all the unions could get together and go to all the corporations they have contracts with and say, "If we work together on getting a single payer healthcare system in this country, that would be one less item on the bargaining table. Medical insurance rates are volatile and at times unpredictable and one of your biggest headaches. If we eliminate the employer having to provide coverage, all we would have to do is decide on fair compensation to the employees for the company not providing the medical coverage. Then in future negotiations it's not an issue." But it's like the greedy rich bastards running things have painted themselves in a corner and can't see a way out.
I mentioned once that I couldn't understand why if GM is bitching about how they spend more on health insurance for employees and retirees than they do for steel in building the cars, they don't push for single payer like Medicare for all. Someone said the employees would demand more money. Sure, but it would only have to be a one time deal to make up for the company paid insurance and then in the future it would be strictly wages and other fringes. When the insurance rates started to go sky-high that would have been the time for the corporations and unions (like it not, individuals have no fucking say in shit like this) to get together on pushing for a single payer system, but I guess the insurance companies wield too much power!!
Regardless of how the Supremes (feel like I'm dissing Mo-Town) rule on the Affordable Care Act, this will be a historic moment. If it's upheld, it'll be historic because Obama was the President that got a major overhaul of healthcare accomplished, if not, the Supremes will go down as a bunch of corporatists who don't care for the people. If the Supremes decide against it, maybe then the people will demand something like Medicare for all, which would be historic. I won't hold my breath!!
I just hope I live long enough to see how history records this period in time!!!!!!!!!!!
SCOTUS (is that like SCROTUM?)should strike it down if Americans want any chance at a real health care system ie single payer. You are correct in that companies providing health care to their employees (as was done in the FSU under the Soviet system)must be a huge expense to them. Since taxes would have to go up to cover, employers could indeed split the difference with the employees as increased wages.
ReplyDeleteBe careful with that "Workers of the World Unite" shit, Kulk... they're already screaming that the Congress is full of commies...
ReplyDeleteSeriously, eliminating health care concerns would free up a lot of employers' expenses, and let workers move from job to job without fear of losing their benefits. The reason they're fighting this tooth and nail is because they fear the mighty insurance giants are somehow going to be cut out of the party one of these days when people realize they're being hosed by a third party entity that has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with their healthcare.
I think the unions gathering together might have been a great bargaining lever twenty years ago when there were enough of us organized to force pay equity and benefit improvements across the board. Now, I'm not sure there are enough private employee's unions left to make a dent in corporate America's list of concerns.
I have government provided health care called TriCare. It works really good. The problem is that going to a single payer plan would decimate the health insurance indstry whom most, if not all, of our people in Congress are on the take from...
ReplyDeleteSarge
anything that actually makes sense will never get done.
ReplyDeleteMy question is: why didn't the Democrats, and especially the White House, promote this as a benefit of single payer; instead of watering down the proposal to please Conservatives before they even started.
ReplyDeletethe Ol'Buzzard