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by Mike Ryan |
Special Report:
Laborers' Health Funds join tobacco litigation
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by Mike Ryan |
More than 30 million working Americans, retirees and their families depend on labor-management, multi-employer health trust Funds for payment of their hospital, doctor, and pharmacy bills. Except for our health funds, most of these Americans would not have employment-based health care coverage.
The same holds true for Wisconsin Laborers. Whether a member is active or retired, most of them rely on multi-employer health insurance to provide necessary benefits to protect themselves and their families from the soaring costs of health care.
Our health care funds are simply pools of workers' money held in trust pursuant to federal law. They are financed by negotiated contributions made on behalf of workers in lieu of cash wages. That is why it is so important that both labor and management trustees are ever vigilant of issues and trends in the health care industry that impact the solvency of these funds as well as the benefits they provide.
As one might expect, health fund trustees have been closely monitoring the charges that have been leveled against the tobacco industry. Specifically, that the tobacco companies knew of the addictive effect nicotine has on smokers and that the tobacco companies purposefully manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes to increase dependency.
Nationwide, health care funds have incurred billions of dollars in costs providing health care for participants and beneficiaries who suffer tobacco-related diseases, including cancer and heart disease. By their own admission, the tobacco companies' marketing efforts have targeted blue collar workers and their families, with the result that smoking and disease rates among these groups are twice the national average.
In many respects, the tobacco companies have shifted to our funds the health costs of smoking. The tobacco industry has profited from the sale of cigarettes, while the workers' health care funds and their beneficiaries have paid the financial, health and emotional costs.
For that reason, both the Wisconsin Laborers' Health Fund and the Milwaukee Construction Workers Health Fund have joined with over 200 building trade related health funds across the country in a litigation against the tobacco industry.
Our funds are seeking from the tobacco companies fair reimbursement of our tobacco-related health care costs so that we can finance smoking prevention and cessation programs and offset the costs that drain resources from other health benefits. The tobacco companies have agreed to reimburse the States for hundreds of billions of dollars in tobacco-related health care costs. The States achieved this reimbursement by filing lawsuits.
Likewise our funds have filed class action lawsuits for reimbursement in more than 30 States. However, the so-called "global settlement agreement" between the tobacco companies and some State Attorneys General would if approved by Congress, prohibit our lawsuits by granting the tobacco industry immunity from class action litigation. We believe this to be neither fair nor equitable.
We will continue to update you on the progress of this litigation. Meantime, we urge members to contact their Congressman and urge them to oppose granting immunity to the tobacco industry. (Please refer to the Congressional Directory on page 4 for contact information.)
The message to your Congressman is clear - granting such immunity is to deny our funds and other claimants the civil justice rights to which we are entitled.