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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16665 messages, Last post on Nov 10, 2009 at 7:49 AM
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 06, 2009 2:41 pm) A majority of Americans - 54 percent - are dissatisfied with the overall quality of health care in the United States — the first majority in three polls since 1993, and up 10 points since 2000. Not so good, right? Yet, among insured Americans, 82 percent are satisfied with their health care coverage. This if virtually the same percentage of Canadians who say that they are satisifed with their nationalized coverage. American dissatisfaction tends to stem from news stories that repeatedly tell them that the nation's health care system is "broken." Yet, the Americans who rely on those supposedly awful private insurance plans are satisified with THEIR plan - basically, as satisfied as Canadians are with their national plan. This is the more important - and telling - statistic, as it reflects citizens' actual experiences with a health insurance plan. Equally significant is that among insured people who've experienced a serious or chronic illness or injury in their family in the last year, an enormous 91 percent are satisfied with their care, and 86 percent are satisfied with their coverage. These are people who actually had to rely on their insurance coverage, and are satisfied with their coverage. lumoy: i started down that road simply to point our how our obsolete health care system has put domestic mfgrs at a comparative disadvantage to foreign mfrs--using the now well documented fact that a same car built in windsor ontario car costs $1800 more to build than the same car built across the river in michigan by the same company--thanks to the difference in health care costs. And I have raised three points that need a response, and still have not received one from you on any of them: 1. Please compare the benefits provided under the UAW negotiated plan to those provided by the Canadian national plan. I think we will all discover why the UAW plan costs more. 2. Please compare the cost of the health care plan provided by the transplant operations in the U.S. to the cost of the Canadian plan, along with the benefits provided by each plan. 3. If nationalized care is so much better, then why hasn't the UAW allowed the companies to shift retired blue-collar workers to Medicare, the American national health plan for senior citizens? It would save the companies a ton of money. It would allow the UAW to put its money where its mouth is and take advantage of a nationalized health care plan. lumoy: we have no apparent problem with the fact that the top 1% have upwards of 50% of the country's national wealth and at least since 1980 that the top 5% should get tax breaks in hope that it would trickle down to the rest of us. yet let a factory rat making $28-30 an hour having access with is family to a summer retreat and family education center with a golf course paid their own dues--and the right wing goes nuts. First, it isn't just the "right wing" that is going nuts. A recent survey showed that a majority of Democrats - 55 percent - oppose this bailout. Second, if one reason these companies are going broke is because of their uncompetitive cost structure, and a big part of the problem is costs stemming from work rules and gold-plated health care plans, it is not unreasonable to ask that said companies and their union address these costs BEFORE receiving any taxpayer money. Third, whether I make $60,000 a year, or $60 million a year, this is MY money the federal government is using for a bailout, so if you and your union don't like these questions, then don't ask for any government money and instead work with these companies to solve the problems on your own. lumoy: i have for example tried to point out that the uaw is not asking the federal government to bail out its operations and help the uaw's poor financial health but no one seems to understand the distinction. Without this loan (which is really a grant - there is no way that GM and Chrysler will ever pay it back), GM will file for bankruptcy, and Chrysler will be broken up and sold to other companies. At that point, the UAW will be hanging on for its life - especially when Ford demands the same wage and benefits package that GM pays its workers when it emerges from bankruptcy. This "loan" is as much about saving the UAW as it about saving GM and Chrysler. GM will still exist after it goes through a bankrutpcy reorganization. Chrysler's components - Jeep, the minivans, the Dodge Ram - are valuable to other companies, and will still exist after the company is sold off to other companies. The UAW's chances for survival in these scenarios, however, are quite slim. So, by any realistic standard, this "loan" is about bailing out the UAW as much as it is about bailing out GM and Chrysler. Without this "loan" there is a good chance that the UAW dies. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it's...a duck, no matter how desperately the UAW and its supporters want to pretend otherwise.
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Replying to: manegi (Jan 06, 2009 8:38 pm) i will have to admit, when i thin of japanese mass transportation, i think of those guys that shoved people into the subway cars. anyways, better to get the 'scoop' from you! 
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 06, 2009 5:51 pm) You know gagrice, all this back and forth on healthcare between you and lumoy is exactly what we see in debates all across this country, as to who should carry the burden of the costs, but we should be looking at the people who hand out the bills and say WTF with these double digit increases in premiums, when inflation is nowhere near these increases in terms of %. I don't know about elsewhere, but here in RI you have only 3 choices: BCBS of RI, United Health, or Tufts (sounds like the auto industry 50 yrs ago). No incentive to keep cutomers as there is nowhere else to go, so they have you over a barrel. Maybe we need nationwide competition between these companies, and maybe that will hold these premiums in check. No matter what, SOMETHING has to be done.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 06, 2009 8:04 pm) Gagrice, isn't that HIS problem though???? A company does benefit paying a $30/hr employee $45/hr for the OT, as this work is being done cheaper than if they hired a new employee to do that job. It is up to the individual to understand that if you make $x per yr for a 40 hr week and they ask you to work 60-70 per week, that is NOT normal, and probably not permanent ( we can also argue the merits of whether it's safe too), and they should spend accordingly. |
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jan 07, 2009 3:24 pm) A good point. In the cost of UAW retirees and current employees the increases in healthcare costs are ridiculous. The amount paid for a service by Medicare vs the amount billed to the Joe the Plumber who is paying is own bills is a ridiculous comparison. All payments should be at the same rate. The hospitals/providers try to make up from the paying customer what they can't get from the insurance agreements and the government payers (and the indigent to whom they provide services). One Cincinnati doctor whom I visited every six months explained why the adjacent large hospital was building or adding on big expansions all the time. He said the more they owed for the expansions the higher the payment rate from Medicare/Medicade they got. If they had less debt, they got less payment. A local hospital tells individuals paying their own billing to contact the office for a rate reduction on their bill if they wish--I take that to mean they'll adjust it down to what they get paid by insurance companies. The current UAW cost problem is a small example of the major problem we all face. However the UAW has negotiated a sweetheart deal when the car company MBAs didn't realize that healthcare costs would keep going up.
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jan 07, 2009 3:40 pm) But the companies now like Toyota use parttime employees and pay them less. That lowers the cost. |
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Replying to: grbeck (Jan 07, 2009 8:21 am) i can understand opposition to the bailout --all of the bailouts. [ i wish i saw the same reactions against the trillion dollars we have spent on our immoral destruction of iraq. ( check a site called national priorities where you will learn that your household is spending about $120 a month on iraq and that 42% of your federal tax dollars are going to the pentagon)] but what i have been trying to do is point out the distinction of how only the auto industry loans are conditioned on the backs of hourly workers whose costs are but 10% of the product. I have also taken special umbrage at the criticisms of the UAW memberships' decision to spend some of its strike fund earning to maintain the UAW education center at black lake. everyone assumed it was some plush resort for UAW executives. at least you now know it is a forty year old member education center with a public golf course. i admit the UAW benefits, but so do the communities and thousands of other employers and entites whose futures are tied to the domestic auto industry. sorry but i see a big big distinction between between your right to tell a borrower how run his or her life and the borrower's extended family. i also see absolutely nothing sinister about the uaw hanging on to its black lake education center (anybody want a great golf course for cheap?). if the membership decided their declining dues income cannot support the center, that is the uaw's business. i am going to make one last comment and then go back to clearing snow and cutting wood till spring comes around july. if you know a little bit about the uaw, you will find the the chrysler loan guarantee act of 1980 marked an era of concession bargaining that has really never stopped. doug fraser went back to the bargaining table three times to satisfy congress and come up with two billion in labor savings to get about a billion and half in loan guarantees to save chrysler from bankruptcy. that loan was not only repaid early but the taxpayers earned almost another half billion on their chrysler stock. more important - thousand of retirees recieved their pension and health care and even more thousands have had good paying jobs for almost 30 years. i think the chrysler loan history can and will be repeated and i think that history proves this loan is worth the risk. the uaw has paid a price since 1980- its canadian region divorced from the uaw because of this and a "new directions" caucus rose within the UAW to challenge the leadership's willingness to bargain "concessions". The challenge went as far a presidential election vote and while "new directions" lost-- it is still there and making lots of militant noise right now. the uaw has been very responsible in negotiating concessions in this latest round beginning in 2006 and is re-opening its agreements now. (taking on the huge legacy liability for big3 retirees (VEBAS) and two tier wages and benefits in the auto plants is something i never ever contemplated during my 30 years on the uaw staff. i hope and pray they will pull through this.The UAW is the best union with the best and cleanest leadership in the country and therefore i know they will..
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Replying to: cooterbfd (Jan 07, 2009 3:24 pm) That is a great question. I feel the individual should be responsible for their own health care. My Mom & Dad did not have any health care coverage when I was growing up. They paid for all the kids to be born etc. etc. I don't even know if I had health coverage the first 9 years when I worked for Pacific Telephone. It was not an issue anyone seemed to talk about or worry about. First I remember it being mentioned is when we voted to have the Teamster Union represent us in Alaska when I worked for RCA. Now it seems that every conversation gets around to medical cost and who pays what. I would like to know why it costs $15k per day to stay in a lumpy hospital bed with less than attentive care. For a couple hundred a day I can stay in a nice room at a hotel with room service. Who gets the rest of that $15k my insurance company pays the hospital? I am of the opinion that two things have happened. The medical providers have found an easy target with insurance coverage and the ambulance chasers have found an easy target with the medical providers. The key to this scam working is you and I getting sick or hurt. That and the American obsession with our illnesses has given the HMOs a free ticket to rip US off. If anyone here thinks the US government will improve the situation. I got a bridge for sale. Our Union over the 37 years I was a member went from owning their own hospital and clinics. Hiring all the staff to selling the whole mess and dumping it onto an HMO, now back to trying to administer medical payments as their own Health provider. Last contract I looked at the employer was paying over $6 per hour for mediocre health coverage.
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Replying to: gagrice (Jan 07, 2009 4:51 pm) Absolutely with you on that. Everyone who gets medical benefits from an employer would instead get that money tax-free in their paycheck. People pay cash or credit card for medical care. The government places limits on what doctors and hospitals can charge, and that would be about 50% of current. The hundreds of thousands of people in hospitals and insurance companies who push paper (billing) are cut, and do go find productive jobs. The government severely limits malpractice lawsuits, and each doctor in this country can reduce their malpractice insurance about $50,000. Or if you absolutely want medical insurance then you buy it from your paycheck. But cash, limited paperwork and eliminating law from medicine would be much better. That is probably why countries like Canada have much cheaper care.
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Replying to: imidazol97 (Jan 07, 2009 3:45 pm) The AMA, big drug companies, managed care, and many others are lobby's in Washington. They represent their members well. As the baby boomers age the system will need adjustments. Why do Americans waste 650 billion in health care? http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/Why_Americans_pay_more_for_health_care_2275 |
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