Sanders changes Medicare-for-all plan in face of opposition from organized labor

[George II]

By Chelsea Janes, David Weigel and Holly Bailey / The Washington Post / WP Bloomberg

Posted at 8:42 AM

ALTOONA, Iowa - Sen. Bernie Sanders announced a key change to his Medicare-for-all insurance plan Wednesday, a move meant to assuage fears on the part of organized labor, whose support is being heatedly sought by all of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Labor representatives have expressed concerns to candidates publicly and to campaign staffs privately that a single-payer system could negatively affect their benefits, which in many cases offer better coverage than private plans. The change announced Wednesday would effectively give organized labor more negotiating power than other consumers would have under his bill by forcing employers to pay out any money they save to union members in other benefits.

One of the primary concerns union members and leaders have raised about Sanders’s Medicare-for-all plan is that they negotiated health-care coverage under the current system, in some cases ceding salary in exchange for those benefits.

Under Sanders’s new wrinkle, those unions could renegotiate their contracts under the supervision of the National Labor Relations Board. “Unions will still be able to negotiate for and provide wrap-around services and other coverage not duplicative of the benefits established under Medicare-for-all,” the plan now says, a seeming acknowledgment of a role for private insurance by a campaign that has railed against its opponents for not taking a hard enough stance against such coverage.

https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20190822/sanders-changes-medicare-for-all-plan-in-face-of-opposition-from-organized-labor

Looks like Kamala Harris' plan now.

[Fresh_Start]

1. Bernie should give up his great medical plan as a member of Congress

and try Medicare for a few years.

[greatauntoftriplets]

28. Second that.

Medicare needs fixing to make it more user friendly before they put everyone on it. I'm happy that it exists, but it's not free and I have to buy other insurance. Yet I still have thousands of dollars year in out-of-pocket costs. That includes the co-pays that my parents never had to pay.

[customerserviceguy]

2. Putting everybody in the United States on one system wasn't going to work. n/t

[comradebillyboy]

3. Unworkable is a feature of all his plans. That's why his

legislative accomplishments are so sparse.

[Thekaspervote]

4. Indeed

[lapucelle]

5. So Kamala wrote the damn plan?

I wonder why BS didn't think the details through before the splashy announcements.

Didn't BS slam Kamala's plan 3 weeks ago?

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/7/30/headlines/kamala_harris_releases_healthcare_plan_calling_for_privatization_of_medicare

[George II]

6. That's the other point to note. When Harris came out with her plan, he and his surrogates....

....and upper staff slammed her because it wasn't good enough.

Now HIS is roughly equivalent to hers. Will there be any apologies or retractions?

From your link:

Bernie Sanders’s campaign quickly slammed Harris’s plan, saying it is “centered around privatizing Medicare, enriching insurance executives and introducing more corporate greed and profiteering into the Medicare system.” Bernie Sanders is calling for a single healthcare system, run by the government, that would essentially do away with private insurers.

[lapucelle]

10. Is that accurate or agenda-driven alarmist hyperbole? N/T

[thesquanderer]

34. re: "Now HIS is roughly equivalent to hers." How so?

(also picking up from your line in the OP, "Looks like Kamala Harris' plan now." )

As far as I can tell, there has only been one change, which politico described this way in its fact check:

Under Sanders’ new plan, companies with union-negotiated health care coverage would have to renegotiate their workers’ contracts. The National Labor Relations Board would oversee and enforce the negotiations once Medicare for All becomes law. Any resulting health care savings from the single-payer system would be required to be returned to workers in the form of higher wages or more generous benefits.

That's the revision, which is also consistent with what you excerpted in your OP. Does Kamela Harris' plan include this? And if so, do you consider that to have been the only significant difference between her plans and his? If not, what is the basis for your assertion that their plans are now basically the same, whereas before they were not?

[DrToast]

7. Harris shouldn't get too cocky

His plan was all there when she co-sponsored his bill.

She’s right, that MFA isn’t going to work, but she’d get more credit if she recognized that from the start.

[lapucelle]

9. BS revamped his bill in 2019. If even BS doesn't see his own bill

as finished product, why would we assume that co-sponsors necessarily do? After all, the bill is open to amendment.

Decisions to cosponsor legislation can be made for a variety of reasons, some of which might be unrelated to the text of the bill itself. As such, co-sponsoring a bill should not be equated with a vote for final passage. In some cases, the text of a measure might have been amended following its introduction in ways a cosponsor can no longer support.

In addition, Senate norms of behavior have long emphasized collegiality and deference to one’s colleagues, and some Senators may view co-sponsorship as the legislative equivalent of a common courtesy.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/98-279.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1804/text#toc-idbd1d01a7be234fa2be16a252c6a2fbb6

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1129/text?r=8&s=6

[Hortensis]

8. What? Bribing unions to support his candidacy with promises

of future flows of money paid by employers and ultimately non-union citizens?

Note that the nation's employers are not party to this little union-candidate agreement. I wonder what they'll think of it? Knowing the answer to that of course, I'm actually more interested in seeing some numbers for its projected impact on non-union healthcare premium payers. And for the prospect of forming new and larger unions in future...

When I read this, I thought Sanders, and whomever, was backing off his unnecessary and draconian attack on the rights and freedom of individuals to choose. You know, to instead protect that life, liberty and pursuit of happiness thing, as most Democrats try to do as a matter of sacred principle? Only, where'd the incentive be for unions to back his candidacy instead of others in that?

No.

[mcar]

11. Wonder when he and his supporters will apologize

to Sen. Harris for trashing her plan.

[LiberalFighter]

12. Why do labor unions need any help in this matter?

Labor unions should be able to negotiate or re-negotiate their contract so that any savings under a MFA or universal type of health insurance could be used to improve it or put the money into their pockets.

The NLRB should not be needed to supervise it. The idea suggests that either Sanders doesn't understand how labor union contracts are negotiated or his staff members that came up with don't.

The NLRB doesn't get involved in contract negotiations now unless either party is involved in unfair labor practices.

[lapucelle]

16. Because some people are making dangerous assumptions, I just posted

this in a different thread.

My husband is an FDNY 9/11 survivor. The negotiated specialized benefits in his "regular" union-negotiated health insurance coverage (including additional coverage for heart and lung problems associated with firefighting) kept him going until he was approved for coverage under the 9/11 programs.

There is nothing straight forward about the assumption that a vaguely worded clause in a new general labor plan has a relevant statutory mechanism in a health care bill introduced first in 2017 and then revamped into a "better" bill in 2019.

And it still begs the question, if this is not a change, then why didn't BS point out that his plan addresses any gaps created by specialized negotiated benefits when the questions first arose months ago?

[LiberalFighter]

19. Labor Union contracts are not vaguely worded.

At least not the ones I have experience.

And yes, it should be clearer how the plan would impact labor union coverage.

[lapucelle]

20. It's the BS labor plan that is vaguely worded, not the union negotiated contracts.

This is what I said:

There is nothing straight forward about the assumption that a vaguely worded clause in a new general labor plan has a relevant statutory mechanism in a health care bill introduced first in 2017 and then revamped into a "better" bill in 2019.

Yes, I agree that BS should be clear about how the actual mechanisms in his revamped health care bill support the vague promises in in his new labor plan.

He hasn't been.

[LiberalFighter]

22. Got it

So they likely just slapped something together thinking it would look good?

[lapucelle]

23. Addressing this complication now is a good thing.

I don't know why his campaign's immediate reaction was to attack WaPo for calling it a change and then to cast doubt on their report by claiming that WaPo doesn't know the difference between a labor policy plan and healthcare legislation.

[Cha]

13. Not an original.. thanks, George.

[HerbChestnut]

14. Baaaahahahahaha wow

"Looks like Kamala Harris' plan now."

No. No it doesn't.

[namahage]

15. Convincing argument there, full of points deserving consideration. n/t

[HerbChestnut]

17. I put as much effort into that response as the OP deserved.

There's a few other threads that go into more detail on why the WaPo article and George are wrong.

[lapucelle]

18. Actually, George is right.

Unless and until BS explains the specific mechanisms already in place in his bill for securing, guaranteeing, and continuing any specialized supplemental insurance that is or was accepted by union members (in lieu of past or present salary) as a negotiated benefit, then this change aligns BS with Kamala's plan.

And of course it still begs the question that if this is not a change, then why didn't BS point out that his plan addresses any gaps created by specialized negotiated benefits when the questions first arose months ago?

This is relevant to me. I'm from an FDNY family. My husband was a UFA delegate for 25+ years.

He's also a 9/11 survivor. The negotiated specialized benefits in his "regular" union-negotiated health insurance coverage (including additional coverage for heart and lung problems associated with firefighting) kept him going until he was approved for coverage under the 9/11 programs.

[George II]

27. How nice.

[NYMinute]

21. Every BS plan starts as someone else's plan first nt

[Cha]

24. When he was criticized in the debate for not knowing for sure if his plan would mean better health..

Link to tweet

[Eric J in MN]

25. Bernie Sanders is saying labor unions

...should be able to negotiate higher salaries as soon as Medicare for All passes.

He didn’t change his definition of Medicare for All.

[George II]

26. Sure, the labor unions have contracts already, some long-term contracts....

...with their salary increases already negotiated in those contracts.

So the employers save huge amounts of money due to "M4A" (not really, but....), do we really think they'll give that to their employees? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

[Eric J in MN]

29. Management never wants to raise worker salaries

...but a labor union has power and could negotiate higher salaries if Medicare for All passed.

[George II]

31. But they will never get the full amount that employers save, if they really do save anything.

[betsuni]

30. K&R

[Cha]

32. yeah, he better.

[Cha]

33. Kick