Comments on: For pensions, a promise still matters http://blog.usw.org/2009/03/30/for-pensions-a-promise-still-matters/ USW Fighting Globally For Workers' Dignity Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:09:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: MS Progressive http://blog.usw.org/2009/03/30/for-pensions-a-promise-still-matters/comment-page-1/#comment-81 MS Progressive Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:06:47 +0000 http://blog.usw.org/?p=555#comment-81 Thoughts from a Michgan friend who has several GM/UAW retirees in the family: Do Geithner and Obama recognize the urgency of addressing this immediately? Failure to do so is likely also to guarantee the collapse of the present system of heath care provision for most of American consumers. Medicaid, Medicare, and large employer/union-won health plans with retiree components are the three-legged stool on which medical care sits in the U.S. and if even one leg breaks, the whole thing falls. Not that that system --which skims an obscene amount of the money moving between patient/payor and provider/ payee into the hands of the insurance/ banking/investment management cartels which have failed us so badly recently -- doesn't deserve to die, but the replacement needs to be a lot more developed than it is at present if huge suffering is to be avoided. Thoughts from a Michgan friend who has several GM/UAW retirees in the family: Do Geithner and Obama recognize the urgency of addressing this immediately? Failure to do so is likely also to guarantee the collapse of the present system of heath care provision for most of American consumers. Medicaid, Medicare, and large employer/union-won health plans with retiree components are the three-legged stool on which medical care sits in the U.S. and if even one leg breaks, the whole thing falls. Not that that system –which skims an obscene amount of the money moving between patient/payor and provider/ payee into the hands of the insurance/ banking/investment management cartels which have failed us so badly recently — doesn’t deserve to die, but the replacement needs to be a lot more developed than it is at present if huge suffering is to be avoided.

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