Health care reform
The Teamsters support the House tri-committee health care reform bill – America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, H.R. 3200. The bill has passed three House committees – Education and Labor, Ways and Means, and Energy and Commerce The House Rules Committee will combine the bills, and debate on the bill will be taken up after the August recess.
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 would provide comprehensive health care reform our nation needs – affordable, quality health care for all. The bill creates a public plan option and cost-containment measures. The public plan will compete with insurance companies, with the goal of forcing them to keep their costs reasonable. While most Teamster members have health insurance, the cost of premiums, copayments, and deductibles has gone up, and rising health care costs have been a contentious issue during union contract negotiations, with workers giving up wage increases in exchange for continued coverage by employers of these rising costs. Therefore, a public plan option would benefit both the uninsured and insured – the uninsured would have an affordable option for health care and those who already have insurance would realize a savings as health care costs are contained. As union members, lower health care costs will mean more negotiating room with employers in other areas, such as wages.
America’s Affordable Health Choices Act also does not include taxation of employer-provided health care benefits. The Teamsters oppose any kind of taxation on health care benefits, whether it be on the worker, employer, or insurance company.
On the Senate side, the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee has passed its version of an overhaul bill, and the Finance Committee continues to work on its version, which it expects to introduce after the August recess.