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"Like other wealthy countries we must guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child as a human right, not a job benefit. Whether you're on strike or not, everyone is entitled to healthcare," said Bernie Sanders.
Boeing revoked the company-sponsored healthcare benefits of about 33,000 striking workers starting Tuesday, drawing condemnation from progressives, who said it showed the need for a universal healthcare system in the United States.
The workers, who are mostly in Washington state and are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), went on strike on September 13, and the corporation announced on its website that their healthcare benefits would expire at the end of the day on September 30.
"Boeing's greed offers another perfect example of why we need Medicare for All," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on social media. "Like other wealthy countries we must guarantee healthcare to every man, woman, and child as a human right, not a job benefit. Whether you're on strike or not, everyone is entitled to healthcare."
Sara Nelson, the international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), wrote on social media that "healthcare should not be tied to employment."
"Also, shame on Boeing!" she added.
Unionists demonstrate in Renton, Washington on September 26, 2024. (Photo: Taylor Garland)
Many companies have been accused of cutting off healthcare benefits as a strike-breaking tactic. General Motors revoked healthcare benefits to striking workers in 2019, and Warrior Met, a coal mining company, did so in 2021; John Deere, meanwhile, threatened to follow suit during its 2021 strike.
In 2022, House Democrats moved to establish a federal law preventing the maneuver, but the proposed bill didn't pass.
Washington state, which has a Democratic trifecta, did pass legislation this year providing a modicum of support to striking workers. The new law allows workers involved in a labor dispute open enrollment into subsidized healthcare through the state exchange system.
The striking Boeing workers said they plan to remain steadfast despite the cutoff of benefits.
"I'm 50 years old. I've been working since I was 16," Robert Silverman, told a local reporter from the picket line on Monday. "I've been saving for a long time. From day one in my hiring process, they told us about this day, they said to be ready."
The healthcare cutoff followed a month of frenzied negotiations. On September 8, Boeing and IAM reached a tentative deal that could have averted a strike, but the 33,000 workers voted overwhelmingly against it days later, opting to go on strike.
The strike has effectively stopped Boeing's commercial airline production, though most of its 170,000 workforce is not on strike, and the corporation continues production in other domains.
The points of dispute in the negotiations include wages and retirement benefits. The tentative deal included a 25% wage increase by the end of a four-year contract, but employees wanted a 40% increase. On September 23, Boeing proposed a 30% increase, saying that was its "best and final" offer. IAM rejected it, angered by the wording and the fact that the offer was made via the media, rather than directly to the union.
Boeing, once a beacon of U.S. industrial prowess, was already in turmoil before the strike began after a series of scandals in recent years that have raised serious questions about its commitment to safety.
The corporation has also long been in the crosshairs of progressives and working-class advocates who say its management has been especially greedy.
"Boeing could have taken help to keep people on payroll through Covid, but they turned down billions in federal assistance because it came with strings such as banning stock buybacks and capping executive compensation," Nelson, the AFA-CWA leader, told Common Dreams. "This company has bowed repeatedly before the alter of shareholder capitalism."
Nelson said the union's campaign for fair pay and benefits was in fact connected to efforts to improve safety protocols.
"Machinists are fighting... [for] good union jobs and in the process they are fighting for our safety," she said. "We stand with them. This strike is the best chance we have of saving Boeing and making it once again a marvel of engineering and solid maintenance."
The push for Medicare for All in the U.S., meanwhile, remains muted, despite the failures of the U.S. healthcare system. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation as a senator, but hasn't included it as part of her 2024 platform.
"This for-profit system leads to higher rates of death and disease and lower life expectancies—all while Americans spend more and more trying to get the care they need."
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal on Thursday night responded to a new analysis exposing the failures of the for-profit U.S. healthcare system by renewing her call for Medicare for All.
Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are the lead sponsors of the Medicare for All Act. When they reintroduced the bill last year, they highlighted research showing that it could save 68,000 lives and $650 billion per year.
The Commonwealth Fund report—titled Mirror, Mirror 2024: A Portrait of the Failing U.S. Health System and released Thursday—adds to the mountain of evidence that, as Jayapal said in a series of social media posts, "our healthcare is broken."
Noting that "41% of Americans hold medical debt" and "millions are uninsured," the Congressional Progressive Caucus chair declared that "we need universal, single-payer healthcare: Medicare for All."
"America's healthcare system is in dire need of an overhaul. It is largely run by private insurance companies who only care about increasing their profits and limiting choices for consumers."
As Common Dreamsreported, the latest Commonwealth Fund analysis focuses on 70 health system performance measures in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
"All the countries have strengths and weaknesses, ranking high on some dimensions and lower on others," the report states. "Nevertheless, in the aggregate, the nine nations we examined are more alike than different with respect to their higher and lower performance in various domains. But there is one glaring exception—the U.S."
Jayapal made her case for Medicare for All with some details from the report, pointing out that "despite spending more, the U.S. ranked last in equity, access to care, and health outcomes—including acute illnesses, chronic diseases, and death. Of the countries studied, Americans live the shortest lives and face the most avoidable deaths."
"This is wholly unacceptable," she argued. "America's healthcare system is in dire need of an overhaul. It is largely run by private insurance companies who only care about increasing their profits and limiting choices for consumers."
"They refuse to pay for certain doctors, even as the average American spends tens of thousands of dollars every year on copays, deductibles, and private insurance premiums," she said. "Sometimes, they even have their own doctors override decisions about what you need for your own healthcare."
The congresswoman continued:
Medical debt and exorbitant costs regularly keep people from seeking necessary care, with a growing population of "underinsured" Americans—those who have health insurance but still aren't getting the care they desperately need.
This for-profit system leads to higher rates of death and disease and lower life expectancies—all while Americans spend more and more trying to get the care they need. In the richest nation on the planet, this simply should not and cannot be the case.
We need a system with comprehensive care for all, regardless of employment status, with no copays, deductibles, or private insurance premiums. A system where the [government] provides your insurance and doesn't allow private companies to override what your own doctor says you need.
We need comprehensive and improved Medicare for All that covers mental health, long-term care, reproductive care, dental, vision, and hearing. No hidden fees, no premiums, no copays, no deductibles. Just healthcare—when you need it, where you need it, so you can stay healthy.
"I'm so proud to be the lead sponsor of the Medicare for All Act, and I won't stop fighting until everyone can get quality healthcare without having to worry about what it might cost. Thank you so much to the 100+ members who have cosponsored our bill, H.R. 3421!" she added. "It's time for a healthcare system that actually works. Let's get Medicare for All done."
The bill, which has 14 co-sponsors in the Senate, has no chance of advancing in the current Congress and would likely face difficulty in the next one, even if Democrats won both chambers in the November election. Republican former President Donald Trump spent his first term attacking the U.S. healthcare system, while Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has dropped her support for Medicare for All, saying recently that she wants to "maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act."
Still, patients, providers, and progressive lawmakers continue to demand a transition to a public system that serves all Americans—and Jayapal wasn't alone in pointing to the Commonwealth report as proof of the need for a major overhaul.
The other nine nations analyzed "have found [ways] to meet residents' basic healthcare needs, including universal coverage," University of California Health executive vice president Dr. Carrie L. Byington stressed on social media.
"The only clear outlier is the [United States], where health system performance is dramatically lower," Byington added. "Americans deserve better. #HealthcareForAll."
"Our private, profit-driven system means that we are paying more for less," said one progressive activist.
A report out Thursday shows that the United States' for-profit healthcare system still ranks dead last among peer nations on key metrics, including access to care and health outcomes such as life expectancy at birth.
The new analysis from the Commonwealth Fund is the latest indictment of a corporate-dominated system that leaves tens of millions of people uninsured or underinsured and unable to afford life-saving medications without rationing doses or going into debt.
"Despite spending a lot on healthcare, the United States is not meeting one of the principal obligations of a nation: to protect the health and welfare of its residents," the report states. "Most of the countries we compared are providing this protection, even though each can learn a good deal from its peers. The U.S., in failing this ultimate test of a successful nation, remains an outlier."
People in the U.S., which spends roughly twice as much per capita on healthcare as other rich nations, "live the shortest lives and have the most avoidable deaths," Commonwealth noted, pointing to frequent "denials of services by insurance companies" and other systematic defects of the American system, including massive administrative costs.
Meanwhile, insurance giants and pharmaceutical companies are raking in huge profits, benefiting in particular from the growing privatization of Medicare. More than half of the Medicare-eligible population in the U.S. is currently on a privately run Medicare Advantage plan.
"Our private, profit-driven system means that we are paying more for less," progressive activist Jonathan Cohn wrote in response to the Commonwealth report.
The Commonwealth Fund's findings bolster progressives' case for transitioning to a Medicare for All system that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone in the country for free at the point of service. Studies have repeatedly shown that such a program would cost less than the immensely wasteful for-profit system—which is set to drive national healthcare spending to $7.7 trillion per year by 2032—while saving lives.
Commonwealth observed Thursday that while affordability "is a pervasive problem" in the U.S., Australia "offers free care in all public hospitals, and the nation's universal Medicare system provides all Australians with coverage for all or part of the cost of [general practitioners] and specialist consultations and diagnostic tests, with additional subsidies available for private hospital care."
"The U.S. continues to be in a class by itself in the underperformance of its healthcare sector," the report continues. "While the other nine countries differ in the details of their systems and in their performance on domains, unlike the U.S., they all have found a way to meet their residents' most basic health care needs, including universal coverage."
With the U.S. presidential election less than two months away, neither 2024 candidate for the two major parties has outlined a detailed healthcare proposal thus far.
Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, said during last week's debate in Philadelphia that he merely has "the concepts of a plan," while Harris—who once co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation in the Senate—said she "absolutely" supports "private healthcare options" and wants to "maintain and grow the Affordable Care Act."
Just days after the debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio)—Trump's running mate—said the Republican nominee prefers a system in which "a young American" and a "65-year-old American with a chronic condition" are not placed in "the same risk pools," suggesting a rollback of the ACA's protections for people with preexisting conditions.
"You can't really say people with preexisting conditions are protected if they are in a separate insurance risk pool and can be charged exorbitant premiums,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at the research group KFF, wrote in response to Vance's comments.