September 11, 2006 03:23 PM Eastern Time
USW Denounces Off Shoring of Health Care Services
PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 11, 2006--News From USW: The United Steelworkers today denounced a shocking new approach that employers are considering to limit health care expenses - sending employees to India or other lower-cost countries for expensive medical procedures.
Dubbed "medical tourism" by the media, the idea of outsourcing medical care to lower-cost countries is finding its way into corporate agendas as a way to cut health care costs.
"Our members, along with thousands of unrepresented workers, are now being confronted with proposals to literally export themselves to have certain 'expensive' medical procedures provided in India," USW President Leo W. Gerard said in a letter sent today to Senate and House committees with jurisdiction over health care issues.
Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc., of Canton, N.C., proposed sending one of its employees, a USW member, to India for surgery - a move that would have saved the self-insured company tens of thousands of dollars.
The USW, however, intervened and the company withdrew the proposal. Both sides agreed to work together to find an alternative within the United States for the employee, who had volunteered to undergo surgery in India in return for a share of the savings.
"With companies now proposing to send their own American employees abroad for less expensive health care services, there can be no doubt that the U.S. health system is in immediate need of massive reform," Gerard said.
No U.S. citizen should be exposed to the risks involved in traveling internationally for health care services, said Gerard, who described the willingness of employers to offer incentives for employees to assume those risks as frightening.
"The right to safe, secure and dependable health care in one's own country should not be surrendered for any reason - certainly not to fatten the profit margins of corporate investors," he added.
The United Steelworkers is concerned with the unwillingness of employers and government to confront and address the issues that are driving up health care costs for our employed members and our retirees.
The union remains steadfast in its commitment to rebuild a domestic health care system, one that does not subject our members other U.S. citizens to the immeasurable risks of dealing with foreign health care providers.
"The off shoring of family- and community-supportive jobs is bad enough," Gerard said. "Exacerbating this crisis by attempting to outsource health care is not only shameless; it does nothing to solve the nation's skyrocketing health care costs."
The USW is the largest industrial union in North America with more than 850,000 members.