Automakers may try to negotiate a massive health care co-op with the United Auto Workers — similar to the one it has with its retirees — and potentially change private health care in the U.S., Bloomberg is reporting.
At issue are the roughly 300,000 workers and beneficiaries, and 750,000 retirees and their families who rely on the UAW for health care.
The pool of more than one million workers and their families could give the Big Three unprecedented negotiating power with U.S. hospitals and clinics.
The health care co-op, already in place for retirees, has significantly cut costs for the automakers. According to the Wall Street Journal, similar cooperations between employers and health care providers — Boeing, Wal-Mart and Lowe’s — have reduced health care costs by 10 percent to 20 percent.
According to Bloomberg, the $61 billion trust established in 2010 for the UAW retirees has cut drug costs, added care and retained its assets.
The potential pool of 1 million auto workers and their families would give the group considerable leveraging power in the health care marketplace and could lead to other direct employer-provider cooperations in the future, side-stepping traditional insurance administrators.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, which currently handles the current auto workers, may stay on in some capacity to administer the benefits, but its role would likely shrink.
During the last round of negotiations with the UAW, automakers were cool to the idea of a health care co-op, but may be warming up to the idea in an effort to further cut labor costs on cars produced in the U.S.
Of course, there are always horror stories about similar organizations like this.
The post Big Three Health Care Co-op Could Change How You Buy a Car, Get Surgery appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
Best Deals today in www.freepromotoday.com