I have yet to meet a single person who hasn't enthusiastically agreed that we should separate healthcare from employment.
You should talk to some union members then. Some unions have negotiated such generous healthcare benefits that they’d either never find on the private market or could never afford.
a smaller and smaller minority though, and the smart strategic choice is understanding that it actually creates classes within the union (same as those w/ pensions grandfathered in vs. those that don't) which weakens the union generally. sort of like the two tiered GM setup currently under strike.
for example, new Washington DC transit workers aren't on the old health plan, which means there's basically a 50/50 split (trending upwards) for people who don't have the benefit. probably not a great strategy to lean on those should the union want to strike over that benefit.
since all that money comes out of wages anyway, it'd be more beneficial to just eliminate the variable vs. trying to salvage a legacy class of workers fortunate enough to have the benefit.
You should talk to some union members then. Some unions have negotiated such generous healthcare benefits that they’d either never find on the private market or could never afford.
They don’t want to give those up.