Under Medicare for All, what is the effect on people (often union workers)

[pnwmom]

who negotiated lower salaries in exchange for excellent health care plans?

If we went with MFA, they'd be stuck with the lower salaries AND have to pay higher taxes, for care that might not be as accessible and/or good?

How do the Medicare for All proponents suggest this problem be addressed?

[k8conant]

1. Renegotiate!!

They won't be stuck.

[pnwmom]

2. If that's the best answer, then you won't get people in that situation to vote for MFA.

We shouldn't make hundreds of millions renegotiate their salaries with their employers while their taxes go up.

[k8conant]

3. How many people are actually in that situation?

Just wondering...

I haven't seen ANY health care plans that are better than what MFA would be.

[pnwmom]

6. Really, it's anyone with good employer insurance. Anyone in that situation has agreed

to accept a salary package, where the cost of the benefits, mostly health, is considered part of total compensation.

So for all those millions, they would have accepted a lower salary in exchange for health benefits -- which would now be paid for out of their taxes instead. And they'd have to fight to get any increase in their salaries to make up for that.

[madinmaryland]

28. The point that needs to be hammered home...

Companies and governments, must be required to give employees the money back that we’re going towards health insurance premiums. If not, companies would be looking at a $2 trillion dollar bonanza at the employees expense.

It has to be put into law that ALL premiums go back into the employees pocket.

[drray23]

27. Really ?

Many people ( me included) who have a high level job also get Cadillac health plans. It's one way employers attract and keep talent. I have no deductible, they pay most of the premium , I pay 160 a month.. if I want my wife on it , it's a whooping 180 and if we had kids ( they are grown up and out of the house) I would cover them for 250.0.

Likewise union members also have very good plans. It's part of the negotiation package.

[Doremus]

9. Hundreds of millions?

To which unions do you refer? The UAW has something like half a million active members and maybe that many retired. AFLCIO is about 12 mill. There are +/- 330 million Americans.

Not doubting your numbers but when I read them I thought, wow, where are all these union members coming from?

[pnwmom]

14. Hundreds of millions INCLUDING union workers have health insurance. The ACA

required any employer with more than X number of employees to provide insurance to their employees.

[xmas74]

34. I'm AFSCME

My contract includes health insurance.

[MichMan]

4. So all union contracts currently in effect become nullified?

[k8conant]

5. By whom? By what?

[pnwmom]

8. If private insurance was eliminated under MFA for all, then all those contracts would be moot.

The employees' taxes would go up but the employees would be stuck with the lower salaries they negotiated in exchange for their employer-provided insurance.

Unless there is some provision in the MFA that addresses this, and that's what I'm asking if anyone has any info about.

[pnwmom]

7. They would effectively be nullified if employers no longer had to provide health insurance,

because we had MFA paid for out of their taxes instead.

[Celerity]

23. Warren said last night that the costs would go way up for the very rich (ok) AND corporations.

If the costs for businesses go way up, then there is no or at least very little to renegotiate back to the workers.

Am I missing something? I am only paraphrasing her own words.

[leftstreet]

10. They'd have to talk to their union reps about that

Medicare For All/Single payer health care has been in debate for years

We all know it's coming

[pnwmom]

12. My husband has excellent healthcare but no union rep. That is the situation for many

salaried workers at corporations.

This is why a public option would be easier to sell to many voters. We could start with that, and over time switch over to MFA. (Anyone on Medicare, by the way, understands that it only covers 80%. Private insurance is still involved. That fact seems to be skipped over by many proponents.)

[leftstreet]

15. That ship sailed with Obama

"public option" had it's chance in a different decade

It's nice your husband has excellent healthcare coverage. But if his employer isn't deducing partial premium payments from his salary, he's the exception in today's employment climate

That's the reality

[pnwmom]

18. He has a deduction for a fraction of what the employer is paying. He and everyone else there

would not be happy about paying more in taxes, while their salaries remain the same.

No, the ship on the public option has NOT sailed. Even this year I heard EW say that a public option could be a first step to MFA (before she started speaking more strongly about MFA). And I think a step-by-step process makes sense. Let employer based care die a natural death, in competition with a public option. Don't murder it all at once.

[madinmaryland]

29. Wouldn't he get the money back that the company is paying for his premiums??

Of course, as we know, companies and corporations will just say fuck you to the workers and take the money and screw the employees. There would need to be legislation to make sure the premium money is required to be added to the employees’ salaries.

[pnwmom]

41. Right -- the companies would not share the reduction with employees unless they were forced to.

Otherwise any increased profits would go to their shareholders.

[leftstreet]

38. Their unions could negotiate for other bennies

If the benefits were part of salary compensation, reps just negotiate to regain that. Time off would be excellent. Stimulate the economy with more time for vacations, home improvement projects, etc.

Doesn't matter in terms of this subject though. Less than 12% of workers are unionized in any case.

[Celerity]

25. You think that the public option cannot be passed, but the much more radical MFA CAN be??

There are now 108 Democratic moderates, centrists and even a few (very few, thank god) centre right (overall, but still caucus with us) members of the House.

Good luck (as I have said before on this board) with even getting the milquetoast Public Option passed, let alone the far, far more radical MFA. I also have not even begun to bring up the Senate (even if we win it back).

[leftstreet]

39. I know of no seniors who think M4A is 'radical' n/t

[Celerity]

40. the US will spend (at current rates of increase) over 110-120 TRILLION USD on healthcare over the

next 20 years. 6 trillion per year just by 2028 or 2029. Yet you say nationalising the funding of it all is not radical? I do fully admit that moving to a true single payer model for both healthcare and pharma would save tens of trillions, I take no issue with that at all.

BUT those trillions in profits (even at small margins it is still multiple trillions upon trillions) are why it isn't going to happen until the whole system crashes, unfortunately. Look at how businesses sectors fight over a few dozen million USD here and there. Now imagine what what multiple sectors will do to maintain TRILLIONS flowing in.

[Hoyt]

11. Public Option proponent here, but I can't imagine union workers would be that selfish.

They can renegotiate, or just suck it up for good of those who don’t have decent coverage. Plus, I don’t think we’ll see MFA any time soon.

[pnwmom]

13. Union workers often are just getting by, despite the union. And many people at these companies

aren't part of the unions themselves -- like the office workers.

But if you are a public option proponent, why are you suggesting that anyone should just "suck it up" to get MFA?

[Hoyt]

17. Sounds selfish to me.

[pnwmom]

20. Most workers are just getting by. Of course they're trying to protect what they have.

To call them selfish is to encourage them to join the R's, the ultimate party of greed.

[Hoyt]

22. Me first. Sorry.

[AncientGeezer]

26. Exactly....

[gratuitous]

19. Damn! Oh well

I guess we can't possibly move to universal health care because some people might be see a temporary financial reversal. Same reason we can't do anything about student loan debt. Or a higher minimum wage. But there you have it: Some people will not be able to take full advantage of a new situation immediately, so we can't do anything to make people's lives better.

[Yavin4]

21. So, the vast majority of Americans have to suffer under our broken healthcare system so that a...

small percentage of Americans (some union workers) can still benefit from the current system?

That's the exact opposite of how you build good social policy.

[pnwmom]

24. No, the vast majority of working Americans now have jobs through which, under the ACA,

their employers are required to provide insurance. That insurance is part of their compensation package. If they lose that insurance and it's just replaced by MFA -- fine. But that's not what the MFA proponents are talking about. They're talking about reducing employees compensation packages by eliminating the health insurance piece -- while, at the same time, having them pay for the MFA through higher taxes, including higher taxes on the middle class.

So this is a win for employers -- getting the burden of insurance off their backs -- and a loss for employees.

[AncientGeezer]

30. The vast majority had it it before ACA...but I get what you're saying

It'll be a shit show if our nominee supports eliminating employer sponsored insurance..private insurance period.

You (not you pn...) want to reelect the orangutan.... push the elimination of employer-employee insurance option.....take away choice.

Maybe we've forgotten the lessons of ACA....2 election cycles of butt kicking.

[missingthebigdog]

32. No.

ACA requires some employers to OFFER health insurance to full time employees. The employer doesn’t have to pay for it.

Many employees, my husband among them, cannot afford the premiums for the employer-offered coverage.

[pnwmom]

35. Well, the same people who can't afford a partial premium might not be able to afford

the thousands of dollars in higher taxes some of the proponents acknowledge this will cost.

[Yavin4]

37. Here's what you, and others, keep missing. Your access to health care should NOT BE dependent on...

your damn job. Healthcare is a human right, not a fucking perk.

[Hortensis]

31. Even this good question is a distraction from reality.

Agree, it's a real issue, but what healthcare will we have if our votes become a faux joke? How should the problem of the attack on our democracy and our very sovereignty be addressed? NOT by being distracted into fussing over healthcare details instead of focusing on protecting the vote.

[pnwmom]

42. That's true, Hortensis. Thank you for bringing up this point. nt

[Midnightwalk]

33. I'll say it again

I don’t care that so called good insurance is part of my benefits.

People like me are already democrats and not all democrats would agree with me.

We have to win the house, the senate and the presidency to get anything. It will take years to complete reforms so we have to win multiple cycles.

What you describe (intentionally?) is the reaction millions will have and there better be a good response or we will not be in power to enact anything.

[pnwmom]

36. Right. I'm describing what a friend of mine has been saying, who had been a strong EW supporter,

but is starting to rethink that because of the MFA issue.

And the more I listened to her, the more I realized she's probably speaking for millions of others.