Taxpayers should not Pay for UAW Health Care Benefits

The Detroit News

One reason the public so distrusts the health care plan being considered by Congress is that so many troublesome details keep bubbling out of the massive legislation.

The latest example is the $10 billion taxpayers will be asked to shell out to prop up the United Auto Workers' retiree health insurance program.

That provision is tucked deep into the bill passed by the House.

In effect, it would ask every taxpayer, regardless of whether they'll have health insurance coverage themselves after they retire -- and most won't -- to chip in to maintain the UAW's coverage, which even after the union's givebacks is still better than what the average American worker receives.

The helping hand is a recognition by Congress that the union's volunteer employee benefit association, or VEBA, can't possibly stay solvent if it is asked to cover all of the union workers taking early buyouts from the Detroit automakers.

So the union's supporters added language to the House's gargantuan health care bill that requires the federal government to pick up most of the cost of catastrophic claims for union retirees age 55 to 64.

The biggest beneficiary would be the UAW, which got $60 billion from the Big Three in exchange for taking on the obligation for retiree health care.

But the bankruptcies of General Motors and Chrysler....to continue reading the article Click HERE