[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Hanh Kim Quach
Health Care Policy Coordinator
Health Access California

The Associated Press reports that the Canadian Auto Workers have signed a three-year contract with Ford. Chrysler is next.

High health care costs have been a primary source of angst for automakers, who two years ago made headlines by appealing to Washington for some kind of help. Since 2005, though, automakers' health care costs have declined by $2.1 billion. The United Auto Workers agreed to some changes, that resulted in increases costs for retirees and workers.

Salaried workers have seen premiums increase as much as 30%, out-of-pocket maximums increase by 33% to $4,000, and a tripling deductibles from $500 to $1,500.

All this -- and automakers are still moving to Canada.

Why We Don’t Need High Deductible Health Insurance in California

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By David Dayen
d-day

It looks as if the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights is planning on going to the ballot in 2010 with a proposal to basically do to the health insurance industry what Proposition 103 did to the auto insurance industry.

“We are going ahead with this,” said Jamie Court, president of the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. “The only thing that would block this is if the single-payer (universal health care) folks want to go ahead and go to the ballot, or if a new president wants to do something more ambitious. In that case, we would back off.” [...]

by David Dayen [courtesy of Calitics - Front Page]