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

[Uncle Joe]

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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.

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