In a message dated 11/4/05 1:42:19 AM, lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org writes:
>> What I have heard from some union officials who don't support detaching
>> health insurance from employment is that they're afraid that if there
>is no demand
>> for employers to pay, the burden will fall more heavily on workers (for
>> example, through regressive taxes). Still, a tax-funded system would
>cost about
>> two-thirds what we're paying now, in aggregate, unless it's administered
>by
>> Halliburton.
>>
>
>I understand this is what you heard, not the position you hold. But I
>thought there was consensus among economists both left and right
>(including Marxist) that employer paid health insurance is simply
>another form of wage. (Workers are better off with it than individual
>insurance, because employers can negotiate group rates, and
>additionally insurers are subject to some regulations in employer paid
>plans that individual plans are not subject to.) So single payer
>health would be better for workers even if financed 100% via
>regressive taxes , not only collectively but individually in the
>majority of cases. That is most currently insured USAians would be
>better off under a regressively financed single payer plan than under
>the current system. True?
Yes, Gar, I agree, as a class we'd not only be better off financially but politically, too, which is the only way we've ever kept gains. We could fight for higher wages more effectively if job actions and firing didn't carry the threat of health care being cut off. And wages can always be cut, either directly or by inflation, whereas universal programs are harder to slash. But we need unionists, who are the better-paid segment of the working class, to support these efforts, they won't succeed without union support and resources. (They might not succeed even then, but without them they certainly won't.)
In Oregon, the AFL-CIO opposed the single-payer ballot initiative, which, since it was statewide, had certain limitations on funding that a national plan would not have. Reading the bill--tell me if this is your understanding--I thought it did fall more heavily than necessary on the higher-paid segements of the working class (which would be the unionized ones.) This was the argument that Oregon AFL-CIO officials gave, as I recall, for opposing the measure. However, their argument might've been a cover for something else. In Florida, we're trying to promote a statewide funding scheme that would not be regressive (quite a trick, since an income tax is constitutionally prohibited here) to obviate this argument which we expect to come down the pike. A Georgia single-payer health care funding plan includes a sales tax and a tobacco tax etc. etc.
This kind of stuff is just unnecessarily unfair. Just because we'd be better off even if it were financed regressively is not a reason to finance it regressively, especially if it will drive away the very people needed to win it.
Jenny Brown