UAW healthcare trust questioned

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Louisville Courier-Journal, January 2, 2008

The historic new trust intended to pay the health costs of United Auto Workers retirees from Detroit's automakers could run out of money much sooner than anticipated. Thanks to two key problems: possibly inaccurate assumptions about the growth of healthcare costs, and $36 billion of the plan is unfunded so far. Industry experts say the scant public information about the trust--known as a voluntary employees' beneficiary association, or VEBA--provides little comfort that current benefits will remain as promised for hundreds of thousands of UAW retirees.

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