HEALTH CARE VOICES

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CWA’s Health Care Reform Priorities

CWA’s broad principles for health care reform are that it should guarantee everyone quality affordable health care with comprehensive benefits; let workers keep the health coverage they currently have; significantly control costs; provide for a strong government role, especially with respect to enforcing the rules by which private insurance companies operate; improve quality; and be based on progressive financing.

The following are CWA’s four specific priorities that will help achieve our principles for reform:

1. Employers should be responsible for covering their workers.

To guarantee quality affordable health care for all we need to build on our current employer-based system by having employers cover their workers or else contribute to a public trust that covers those without employer coverage.

  • Currently, 160 million workers and their dependents are covered by their employers. This will allow CWA members to keep the health care benefits and insurance plans that we have won through collective bargaining.
  • The playing field will be leveled between those employers who provide good benefits and those who do not. Corporate freeloaders will be stopped – those businesses whose workers are covered as dependents or spouses by responsible firms.
  • Costs will be significantly reduced for employers who currently provide coverage, as well as for their workers.
  • To make coverage affordable subsidies will be needed for lower-wage small businesses and low-wage workers.

2. Guarantee coverage for pre-Medicare eligible retirees.

Many workers lose their job or retire early because of layoffs, forced buy-outs and medical conditions or because it’s a negotiated benefit. There are real concerns that the country’s economic woes could accelerate the trend of employers to drop coverage for those who are 55 to 64 and retired. They need to be guaranteed quality affordable coverage like everyone else.

  • There are 3.2 million people aged 55-64 who are retired but not yet eligible for Medicare (age 65) who currently have employer-provided coverage. They are at great risk of losing their health benefits when they need them the most.
  • Health care for pre-Medicare eligible retirees is very costly and many corporations are either eliminating it or significantly limiting it.
  • More employers may drop coverage for this population group unless measures are put in place to make coverage more affordable.
  • There are options for ensuring that employers continue to provide coverage for this population group:
    • Allow employers of any size to buy into Medicare or to insure their pre-Medicare eligible retirees through a national health insurance exchange, which would offer a choice of private and public health insurance plans.
    • Subsidize employers who offer retiree coverage, similar to what is done under the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.
    • Have the government provide catastrophic reinsurance to cover the costs of high-cost patients.

3. Guarantee people a choice of private and public health insurance plans.

Everyone should be able to select from several private health plans, as many can do now through their employer, and have the option of choosing a public health insurance plan similar to Medicare.

  • Public health insurance plans control costs much better than private health insurance companies because of reduced administrative costs and stronger bargaining power with providers.
  • A public health insurance plan will create competition in a private insurance market that is highly concentrated today.
  • A public health insurance plan will give consumers another insurance choice, provide a wide choice of providers, and provide a guaranteed backup so that everyone can obtain quality health care.

4. Do not tax the health care benefits of working families.

Making employer-provided health benefits part of taxable income will be a huge tax increase on workers and employers, penalize those who already have insurance, and force many people to lose health coverage.

  • Fully taxing health care benefits will amount to a $1 trillion tax increase over the next four years on workers and on employers who already provide coverage.
  • Taxing health benefits will result in more uninsured people as employers and workers drop coverage due to rising costs.
  • There are fairer ways to raise revenues:
    • President Obama proposed raising $634 billion over ten years mostly by negotiating lower drug prices, cutting payments to private insurers in the Medicare program, and modestly increasing the taxes paid by families earning more than $500,000 a year.
    • A trillion dollars over 10 years can be raised by expanding the Medicare tax to the non-wage income of the wealthy, reducing the tax subsidy for capital gains and dividends, eliminating other Wall Street subsidies and reducing tax incentives to invest offshore.