It was no free ride.----No socialism involved! The company agreed to it! The government and you did not pay for it. Can you understand that? Your may be right re the health plan, but there's a small matter of $3.2 billion that we taxpayers are apparently going to be stuck with. As the article says:
The move, seen as essential to the company's bid to sell its assets to International Steel Group, followed news in December that Bethlehem Steel's pension plan was underfunded by $3.2 billion and would be turned over to a government agency.
Just to clear up who will pay the future pension benefits, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corp. if funded through employer paid insurance premiums.
From their website:
"PBGC is a federal corporation created under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. It currently guarantees payment of basic pension benefits earned by 44 million American workers and retirees participating in about 32,500 private-sector defined benefit pension plans. The agency receives no funds from general tax revenues. Operations are financed largely by insurance premiums paid by companies that sponsor pension plans and by PBGC's investment returns."