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DETROIT, MI — In 2010, Congress passed and the Administration signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law.
In 2010, the 35 th UAW Constitutional Convention supported the ACA. It’s exclusion of 12 million undocumented immigrants from medical insurance was ignored. Half of the states have rejected the expansion of Medicaid, the other half want to privatize it. It appears that out of the 100 million uninsured and underinsured (most of whom are in low wage jobs) in this country, ACA may cover 10 million of them at best this year.
Ezekiel J. Emanuel’s book, published this year, is entitled Reinventing American Health Care. New York Times writer John Harwood observed this about Ezekiel’s thinking in the book – “Now Mr. Emanuel thinks that a number of well known national companies will break the mold and begin a trend. By his estimation, the proportion of private sector workers who receive health care from employers will fall below 20 percent by 2025. Currently, just fewer than 60 percent of private sector workers get health care from employers.”
The future is here
We are in a period of epochal economic transformation. Automation and globalization are eliminating jobs at a record pace. We are being replaced by new machines that produce with no human labor involved. This means that the basis of our social relationship – jobs and the benefits associated with them – are disappearing.
The leadership of the UAW and the delegates to 36 th UAW Constitution Convention must begin to deal with this reality.
In 1979 the UAW reached its peak membership – some 1.5 million active members. Today the union has a little more than 400,000 active members. Since 2000, the UAW has lost over 55,000 active members at Ford,
GM and Fiat-Chrysler alone.
Over 800,000 UAW auto workers retired and were not replaced. These retiree’s are in
the UAW Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) and it is a healthcare disaster. GM, Ford, Fiat-Chrysler and the Administration in Washington, D.C. have successfully removed auto retiree medical insurance
from auto production. Medical insurance for them now consists of investing in penny stocks and junk bonds.
We must build a new society where our social relationship does not depend on us having a job. A new society based on the production and distribution of healthcare, housing, education, food, clothing, transportation
that cares for the general wellbeing of everyone.
Looking back to move forward We need a new independent political direction. What should come out of the UAW 2014 convention is unequivocal support for Medicare for All. This was endorsed in the 34 th UAW Constitutional Convention in 2006. This is the first step in achieving not just medical insurance, but healthcare for all.
