Cohen: Health Care Crisis Demands a Movement for Solution

Of all the tens of millions of Americans worried about soaring health care costs, one group is even more vulnerable than the rest: Retirees under age 65 who don't have – or could lose – employer-paid health insurance and are years away from qualifying for Medicare.

They are the proverbial "canary in the coal mine" for the U.S. health care crisis, said Jeanne Lambrew, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress on Thursday as she introduced a panel that included CWA President Larry Cohen to talk about the problem and explore solutions.

"CWA has been working on this for 10 years," Cohen said. "We need a collective approach and a collective strategy. We need to create a social and political movement in this country to deal with health care, and that's what we're doing."

Other panelists included Annette Guarisco, executive director of federal affairs at General Motors; Karen Ignagni, who heads a coalition of health insurance plans and former Connecticut Congresswoman Barbara Kennelly, now head of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

A key topic at Thursday's forum at the Center's headquarters in Washington, D.C., is the use of Voluntary Employee Benefit Associations, or VEBAs. 

But Cohen said VEBAs are not the answer for the long term. "We would say that VEBA is a tactic, not a strategy," he told the audience composed largely of policy analysts. "The strategy has got to be health care for all Americans."

Cohen praised the Auto Workers and GM, in particular because their VEBA agreement includes $15 million from the company to create a National Institute for Health Reform that will  work to find solutions to the the health care crisis.

Cohen pointed to the annual $2 trillion bill for American health care that is twice the combined cost for other developed countries that provide universal health care – countries that, not coincidentally, also have higher rates of unionization.

American companies that still provide health care are paying what amounts to a "job tax" of thousands of dollars a year, he said, one of the reasons that more employers are contracting out work or moving jobs to places such as India.

While fighting for retiree health care is hugely important, Cohen urged the panel and audience to take a broader approach toward the system at large to "change the concept and create new choices."

As part of the solution, he suggested a national value-added tax that would be dedicated to health care. He said that's the way health care is paid for in Belgium an dother countries.

More information about the forum and the speakers is available online at www.americanprogress.org.