The Biggest Strike in America Is About How Much Bosses Can Gut Your Healthcare

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

On top of all that, workers formed picket lines because GM is trying to effectively cut their hard-fought healthcare benefits. According to the Center for Automotive Research, a Michigan-based think tank that receives some funding from auto companies, the average UAW worker pays about 3 percent of their health care tab, compared to 28 percent paid by the average American worker. Crain’s Detroit Business reported on Monday that GM’s initial contract offer asked workers to start paying 15 percent of their healthcare costs.

While such a move by an employer may seem fairly ordinary by contemporary standards, it wasn't that long ago that Americans would have viewed this request as a huge scandal. In fact, experts said, that a once-mighty labor union is fighting tooth and nail to save generous health plans speaks to the economic precarity most Americans have grown to numbly accept.

(snip)

Employer-based health insurance was actually something of a historical accident in the United States, led partly by labor unions that were barred from negotiating over wages during World War II. That led unions to begin focusing on other types of permissible fringe benefits, including employer-sponsored insurance. Many non-union companies followed suit, facing pressure to compete with unionized firms. Subsequent changes to the federal tax code made offering health insurance even more attractive for employers, so much so that 70 percent of the population was covered by private health insurance in the 1960s, up from nine percent in 1940.

Today, of course, when "job hopping" is common and the so-called gig economy means many workers are not full-time employees, it's become painfully evident that tying health insurance to work is less than ideal.

(snip)

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywabzb/the-uaw-gm-strike-is-about-how-much-bosses-can-gut-your-healthcare

[PoliticAverse]

1. And this is an argument why you shouldn't be liniking your health insurance to your job.

Note that GM announced they would stop paying the health insurance for the workers while they are no strike.

[pwb]

2. Corporate employee health care cost are tax deductible for them but most don't pay taxes so

Profits take precedence over humans needs.

[Wellstone ruled]

3. Pretty much the Story.

As the Story mentions,other Industries want the Autos to offer crap coverage as so they do not have to compete.