[lbo-talk] re: a Delphi worker on Delphi

[Gar Lipow]

On 11/4/05, JBrown72073 at cs.com <JBrown72073 at cs.com> wrote:
>
> 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
> ___________________________________
> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>

Agreed that it is  unfair. But if you fight for it at the state level
I don't know that it is unneccesary.  In Oregon there were no
constitutional obstacles to setting up progressive financing, so there
it was unneccesary. But in Washington State, would  one hell of
supermajority to put in an income tax. So the choices are:  finance
single payer health regressively, wait for the Feds to do it or don't
do single payer.  And I don't think you will get a real national
single payer movement that can force it through on the national level
until you win at least one state.

Incidentally I don't think even very well paid union members would be
individually worse off under single payer. How do you as a Union
member pay now? Your employers pays the bulk, and pays you less in
wages to make up the difference. If  your employer had to pay a
payroll tax , then  again your employer would be paying for your
healthcare, and lowering wages to compensate - exactly what happens
now. Of course if the system was financed 100% in this way, then your
employer would also be paying for some people not in your workplace.
But to some extent this happens now, and as you point out the the
1/3rd increased efficiency would make up for that; employers who pay
decent benefits would be paying no more for health insurance than now.
Walmart would be paying more - but they already have forced down wages
as far as they can and still attract the workforce they need.  I'm not
saying you can't find workers who would individually be worse off with
a regressively financed single payer system. But I'm betting you would
have to look hard to find them ,and that it would be tiny tiny
numbers.