Posted on 10/05/2007 7:32:47 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
For years, General Motors has said it supports the United Automobile Workers union in its push for change in the nation’s health care system. Now the U.A.W. has persuaded G.M. to put its money where its mouth is.
In a labor agreement reached last week between the company and the union, G.M. has agreed to spend up to $15 million over the next few years to create a National Institute for Health Care Reform.
The pledge is contained in contract language that creates a voluntary employee benefit association, or VEBA, a health care trust that would take responsibility for G.M.’s $55 billion liability for benefits covering G.M. employees, retirees and their families.
G.M. workers are voting on the tentative agreement, and results are expected on Wednesday.
The institute, to be financed by five annual payments of $3 million each, would be the “premier research and educational health reform think tank,” the agreement says. It would be “dedicated to understanding, evaluating and developing thoughtful and innovative reform measures.”
The institute, run by G.M. and the U.A.W., would engage economists, analysts, academics and other experts, who would conduct studies on the current health care system as well as alternatives. It would look at ways to lower drug costs and would sponsor forums on health care changes.
A G.M. spokeswoman, Michelle Bunker, said the company had not specifically called for a single-payer health care plan, in which a government program would be created to offer health care benefits.
But she said G.M. “believes that all Americans should have access to insurance, and we are working with key players to make sure that everyone has high-quality care at low cost.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Corporate welfare seekers and union thugs meet politicians (mostly dims) seeking election cash and power. Taxpayers, please open your wallets much deeper.
This is bovine scatology. GM just wants to get rid of paying all those doctor bills for their union thug retirees. They prefer that the taxpayes do it even if it will break the U.S. Treasury. GM made some stupid moves dealing with the unions.
Well, professor it’s been a couple of decades since my college business classes.
The updated textbooks apparently have a chapter in how to use The Gubmint and taxpayers to bail you out when you do something stupid that costs your company billions of dollars.
I was probably absent that day when you gave the lecture. Sorry about that.
Not sure anyone could convince me to buy a gm vehicle now.
The early benefits of the semi-skilled world now requires intervention since the UAW and AFL-CIO can no longer afford it. The promises of the riches of the labor party now being forced upon everyone. Where are the economics professors blaming this one?
Right now it costs GM a few thousand dollars of each vehicle sold to pay for the medical benefits and generous pension benefits that they are paying to the guy who retired in 1969.
Great message to send to the rest of the business world...there are no ramifications to any risk you take...shoot for the moon and if you go broke, Uncle Sam will bail you out.
Their cars flat out stink. It’s not the fault of American ingenuity.
When you have to compete with Japanese companies whose US workers earn $40/hour less than the workers in Detroit, you have to cut corners somewhere. You know, by leaving some stuff out of the cars...like windows, steering wheels, tires.
The dims want to add some new chapters:
- How to nationalize the energy industry.
- How to provide even more benefits for government employees.
- How to raise taxes without taxpayer approval.
You may need some ongoing education credits for these growth areas of business and political education.
Atlas Shrugged.
I just had an interesting thought (it happens once in a while)...If GM and the UAW get Socialized National Healthcare, does GM get back the $55 Billion they paid into the VEBA?
I have to read that entire pdf file regarding the agreement in the NY Slimes article.
You’re exactly right. The airlines are trying to pull the same BS. Better hold on to your wallet! It’s gonna get hairy in November 2008.
Still no mention of any legistation to “reform” malpractice lawsuits and maybe try to get the so-called “courts” with their so-called “juries” under control.
More Doctors in Texas After Malpractice Caps
If it hasn't been posted, maybe it should be a separate topic.
Actually, it looks like that article was posted...TWICE.
I sure don’t plan to ever buy another GM car—(although I have to admit that I haven’t bought a GM car since some time in the 70’s.) This little deal seals it for me!
GM and the AWU both agree that WE THE PEOPLE should bail them out of their socialist failure.
Yep. And we want a car which goes 100 miles on a gallon of gas and that only costs the buyer $25 - and we want it designed and manufactured within 2 months. Brilliant idea.
Well, the secret of big biz now switching over to becoming Dem donors, instead of Repub donors is out of the bag.
Hillerycare.
The witch has bought big biz off with a promise to have the taxpayers pay for their health care obligations.
Robin Hood turned on his head. Steal from the poor, give to the rich.
But it seems the Dem Party has become a party of the super rich lords and the impoverished serfs. The Repubs the party of the shrinking middle class.
Great point. Damn it, I want a Ferrari for the price of a Yugo.
I’m going to write my local Congresscritter.
100 mpg? get a 49cc scooter. they get in the 80 to 90 mpg range. You don’t even have to pay vehicle registration, at least not in my state. $25 is more like 1k to 2k. They do top out at 30 mph of course.
GM got rid of that obligation just last week in the new deal with the UAW (in case you haven’t heard). I am not sure why they are for this at this point.
Why are they for it?
They can give you 55 Billion reasons. Little pieces of paper with George Washington’s picture on it.
“They can give you 55 Billion reasons. Little pieces of paper with George Washington’s picture on it.”
It’s not GM’s problem anymore. They are paying the UAW a lump sum to takeover health care for retirees.
See post 11.
I considered that too but there doesn’t seem to be an answer. I doubt the UAW would have cut themselves a deal like that in any event. Large corps. I guess are in favor of gov’t health care because they are such big providers. They would also support health saving accounts so that they don’t have to pay for their employees anymore either.
Worth repeating
But how many people understand that the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer is acually a longterm manifestation of political authoritarianism, that is, The Left?
A very difficult relationship to explain, except by overwhelming historical, and international, evidence.
RE: “how many people understand “
Socialism is a globalist construct that will one day allow everyone to understand...from inside a labor camp.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
Maybe this calls for a boycott of the socialists at GM... Perhaps the best thing would be for them to go bankrupt and take the unions down with them.
Big government, big business, big labor. Fascism?
It is certainly the path to fascism. We have a constitution that protects the rights of the minority from the tyranny of the majority. However, the constitution is thin on protecting the minority of taxpayers from the tyranny of those who want to confiscate the results of our hard earned labor and risk taking. SHE has been very clear about HER intentions to confiscate as much as SHE can take.
IOW the union bosses have found a way for GM to pay for a lobbyist arm since union dues can be deducted.
How much money are union members being denied in order to push this.
more detail: lobby efforts can be deducted from union dues. Thus if a union spends 10 dollars per member to push political issues, the union member gets the 10 dollars off the dues. Unions also have to break down the union dues expenditures so they know.
More likely, they will beg to be treated like Amtrak and have the taxpayer subsidize their existence for the “greater good”.
Good point and good question. I need a few million dollars of Gubmint grant money to study the problem and answer your question.
It’s not the fault of American capitalist ingenuity. It’s the fault of Socialism which has ruined every country or US State it has ever been tried in.
My old Ford Mustang GT convertible (still love that car, I’d like to buy it back) that I bought out of college 17 years ago would rattle when I shut the door.
My Acura has 150k miles on it and it drives just the same as it did the day I drove it off the lot...smooth as silk.
Nothing done to it except oil changes, new tires. I’d swear by it.
And it WAS MADE IN AMERICA. By Americans with no Union thugs.
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