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Automotive News & Views United Automobile Workers of America (UAW)
16710 messages, Last post on Dec 01, 2009 at 8:06 AM
You are in the Automotive News & Views Forum. Your Hosts are steve_ & claires
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jan 09, 2009 9:37 am) That tells me 85% of malpractice lawsuits are frivolous. GM and the rest of US have to pay more for medical care because each and every health care person carries a HUGE malpractice insurance policy. I would agree with you if those that do sue and lose are forced to pay all costs including the malpractice insurance for the health care person they sued. Malpractice lawsuits are too one sided. The cost to all of US is not warranted by a very minute number of high profile cases where a doctor screwed up. My auto liability insurance does not cost what malpractice insurance costs. Yet I can do as much damage to another individual as any doctor. What gives with that? Sorry Steve, I just don't believe the big paydays for people are good for the country. It is sad when a wrong foot gets cut off. But I should not have to pay the price. Same goes for GM and their over paid UAW workers. I don't want to reward the UAW greed that has driven the domestics into bankruptcy. |
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Replying to: marsha7 (Jan 09, 2009 9:37 am) My brother's been a physician for 20 years, and he's nearly quit; selling his practice instead and working as an employee of an HMO. He's told me that most malpractice claims never go to court for anyone to rule IN FAVOR; meaning that insurance companies are very likely to settle any case with any close validity BEFORE going to trial. Insurance companies fight those cases that have little to no validity, and thus that is why you see a high-% in favor of the doctors/hospitals (defendants). Again paper pushing to process claims, and legal bills to sue and defend do not provide any benefit to the UAW member or people in general. It is all WASTE. That waste is then passed on to us in the price of labor that goes into the car. We live in a ridiculously complex and expensive society where very few people actually make anything; with swarms of other professions and bureacrats basically adding parasitic costs. My latest personal example of adding wasteful cost - the ISO 14001 Environmental Consultants that have leached onto my company.
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Replying to: kernick (Jan 09, 2009 1:06 pm) You need to hire a couple UAW thugs to handle that situation 
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remarks of senator hillary rodham clinton at uaw legislative conference of 2/8/06 How do we go forward and not back? Let’s start with healthcare. I tried to do something about this and the UAW was one of my greatest partners. I still have the scars to show for how difficult it was, but I’m not giving up, we need to fix our healthcare system, and give people quality affordable healthcare. You know the statistics. We were driving down the number of uninsured in the 1990’s, now it’s back up. More than 45 million of your fellow Americans are uninsured. We are spending 16 percent of our entire national income on health care. I’ll give you a little inside information: we don’t even get as good healthcare as people who spend less than we do. Here we are spending all this money. We’ve got 45 million uninsured. 50 million people, mostly working people and their children who get their healthcare from Medicaid. And we don’t even get the best quality healthcare by spending all that money because we spend so much of it on intermediaries. I’ve been in six pharmacies in the last month. It’s heartbreaking to see people trying to get their prescriptions filled. Most of them poor people, sick people, people with disabilities. They’ve been assigned to some insurance company. They’re not even getting the drugs that their doctors prescribed and we’re taking billions of your hard earned tax dollars and giving it to insurance companies to get them to provide prescription drugs to our elderly and people with disabilities. That’s not efficient, that not cost-effective, that’s wasteful. And that’s the kind of direction that this Administration wants to take us in healthcare. And the rising costs are making it harder and harder for employers to afford healthcare. And what are some doing? You know very well. They’re cutting it back, they’re requiring more pay, and even worse, they are moving jobs offshore. If we don’t get a consensus about what to do about healthcare, we are going to lose our competitive battle in the global economy. We need to, first, do everything possible to stand against the President’s budget which came out Monday. As bad as things are now, this budget is unbelievably bad. You will see the proposed budget slashes $36 billion for Medicare. It cuts $500 million from veterans’ healthcare, increasing enrollment fees and drug costs for veterans. This really gets me. I don’t know how many veterans are out here, and I don’t know how many of you go to the VA system, but the VA system is the most efficient, highest quality institution in our healthcare system because starting in the 1990’s, we began to push it forward into the future. Electronic medical records, giving the government the right to negotiate for drug prices. Now the Administration wants to make it too expensive for veterans to use. We’re going to stand against that. Anybody who has served this country deserves to have access to a VA system that takes care of them for life. One more thing: I have fought, for the last three years, to make sure we gave healthcare to National Guard and Reserve members. We’re getting there, we’ve finally got it passed. But that’s another issue I care deeply about. I don’t know if many of you knew this, but when National Guard and Reserve members started being called up, 25 percent of them did not have health insurance. That’s the country we’re living in, folks. Where is the money going? Well, you know what choices are in this budget. Cut Medicaid, raise costs for veterans, but don’t mess with their tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans. This budget has half a trillion dollars in tax cuts aimed at the wealthiest of Americans. Its embarrassing, isn’t it. We’re cutting not only veterans benefits, we’re cutting childcare, healthcare for children, we’re cutting law enforcement, we’re cutting everything. Just so millionaires can have their tax cuts.
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NY Times 1/1/94 interview of uaw president owen bieber "You can't just keep talking about good high-paying jobs," he said. But Mr. Bieber acknowledged that his union had suffered because of inroads overseas competitors had made in the auto industry, seizing about a quarter of the domestic market for new cars and trucks. To help stem the flow of industrial jobs overseas, Mr. Bieber said, the U.A.W. will continue fighting for Mr. Clinton's health-care plan. While the union favors a single-payer approach, Mr. Bieber said, Mr. Clinton's plan, as presented, offers the best hope for restraining health-care costs for large employers, which will help keep their labor costs competitive. |
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Replying to: grbeck (Jan 09, 2009 7:47 am) I know what value added and touch labor is. You certainly can't be saying that insurance companies are value added in any respect. Anyone can buy this product online in this day in age. |
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 09, 2009 2:26 pm) recently, i went to the pharmacy to get a prescription for pain medication. no it wasn't for those little blue pills that the UAW supposedly consumes so many of.  luckily, i didn't need it and i only bought it because the co pay was $10. while i was waiting i saw all those plastic pill boxes. you know with 7 day or 30 day compartments in them. i would rather turn in my life card than end up like that.
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Replying to: lumoy (Jan 09, 2009 2:26 pm) And again you have side stepped the real issue. How will GM survive unless everyone in the UAW takes a cut in pay? Not just Wagoner. Though I think he belongs in the unemployment line.
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Replying to: explorerx4 (Jan 09, 2009 4:08 pm) I used to feel the way you do about pills. It's different when you actually have the decisions to make. I still work and have young kids so I'll be around a bit yet....
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Replying to: fezo (Jan 09, 2009 5:06 pm) we have somewhat parallel responsibilites to our kids and parents as the UAW leadership does to their members. i still would 'not like' (don't say hate) a life of taking pills. if i walked a mile in your shoes, maybe i would feel differently. i hope you decide to try out giant slalom skiing when you are 100 years old.
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