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Jeff CrosbyOut in the grassroots, workers are mighty angry at the thought their health care benefits could be taxed in a health care reform plan. |
Why Not Health Care? |
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Andy, an IUE-CWA Local 201 member, looked at his pension check from General Electric as he sat in my office at the union hall. The local vice president and the president of the retirees association usually respond to benefit questions like this. But they were both on vacation, and I was struggling to catch up and be of some help.
“I got the $40 raise you told us about in December” he told me. “Then in January, I lost it again, plus another $6. What good was it? What happened?”
A conference call or two later, and we both knew three things had happened. In December, his pension went up $40. In January, his health care went up $46. So when the dust settled, his pension check dropped by $6. And keep in mind that he is one of the lucky ones: The share of employees offering any group health insurance at all to their retired workers dropped from 66 percent in 1988 to 33 percent in 2007.
We fight and fight, but health care costs are killing us. And you can’t bargain your way out of this mess. Understandably, getting the labor movement on the same page on a specific plan to fix health care is no easy task. I can’t even get all the local unions in my labor council to support the same person for school committee!
Still, we hope for another chance for health care reform in January 2009 if we do well in the elections this fall. The buzzwords are flying for health care reform: “Secure,” “Affordable,” “Universal” and “Quality.”
The “universal” part will peel off a Republican or two. They just think that people make bad health care choices; it’s their fault if have lousy health care. As some mainstream economists would have it, bad choices in the health care market by uneducated consumers are the root of the problem. (Check out a “solution” that targets consumers and providers—and not coincidentally leaves the drug companies and insurers off the hook—as offered by the former head of GE’s medical center in Lynn, Mass., and Newt Gingrich.)
There are winners and losers, right? Someone explain that to Andy the next time he drops by the union hall.
The problem is this: Practically everyone uses the same words when they talk about reforming health care. What elected official is against “secure, affordable, quality” health care? If you use buzzwords that are that broad, or a list of good principles 70 words long, you leave a lot of wiggle room for the next president and Congress to provide lousy answers under the same umbrella. Principles and buzzwords can mean a lot of things to a lot of people.
We have to be very sharp to make an impact.
First, we have to identify what we are for—specifically. The best laws, like Kennedy-Dingle that would expand Medicare to those between ages 55-65 and children under 20, and the Conyers single payer bill (H.R. 676) that would overhaul health insurance completely, are included in our AFL-CIO campaign. Even the proposal to expand Medicare has problems, since in its current, increasingly privatized form, Medicare costs themselves are increasing rapidly. The single-payer approach should be upfront—anything short of that we can deal with later, if necessary, as a compromise.
Second, we have to take head-on the issue of “government” control of health care. We can expect the right wing and health care profiteers to fund a zillion ads suggesting that some government apparatchik will be snuffling through our medicine cabinet and yanking IV’s from our aunt Ethel—even if we say we are talking about government in a “watchdog” role and not “in control”.
The right wing is not moved by fine distinctions, and being on the defensive won’t help us. It’s either the government or the insurance companies and drug companies that make the rules and run health care. And the latter have to get out.
I know, people are wary of big government. The problem of rebuilding support for the public sector in general as a campaign for the public good is more than I can go into here, but it’s arguably the key task of the labor movement today. Sure, building trades folks have problems with the city inspectors when they do side jobs. A buddy of mine got screwed by the zoning board when he tried to remodel his garage. It has taken my brother months to figure out the “Aid and Attendance” benefit from the VA for my dad. Nobody wants to pay taxes, and everybody thinks the governor and the mayor (apparently all of the mayors, everywhere) and his buddies are ripping us off. On the other hand, we know that 82 percent of union members want government to do more on health care. So we think conflicting things, side by side. It’s called confusion. The answer to confusion is clarity, even if it takes a while to get there. It is suggested that if we are asked if we support something like the Canadian health care system, we denounce the question as “scare tactics.” Yet even an article by Stanley Greenberg in the American Prospect last June, which is sometimes circulated as a cautionary note on why we have to soft-pedal government’s role in health care reform, says: “A majority goes so far as to say it’s time to establish a Canadian-style health care system.” If a majority of the American people already support it, why should those of us fighting for health care reform not defend it?
According to our own research, three times as many people think health care in Sweden is better than ours, as compared to those who think we have a better system than Sweden. Sounds like a rejection of the market-driven health care flop in favor of those Volvo-driving socialists.
Give me a chance to argue the guv’mint against the insurance companies and drug companies, and I’ll deliver you the majority every time.
In a catastrophic illness, the insurance companies are appreciated. But I fought my insurance company for five months to get them to pay for treatment of my son’s broken collarbone when he fell snow-boarding at Sunday River in Vermont—the last two months because they would not pay for $5 worth of ibuprofen. I fought my insurance company again when they wanted me to pay for my wife’s mammogram out of my own pocket. The hospital gave the insurance company the wrong Social Security number for my wife (even though she used to work there!), and by the time they corrected it, the insurance company said the bill was submitted too late. So the hospital put collection agencies on me. These were high-level negotiations. As in, “Hey, have you ever broken your collarbone? Well, IT HURTS!”
People like Andy get a little cranky when William Van Faasen, CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, walks off with $16.4 million in retirement benefits—and then, oops, doesn’t quite retire after all and continues to pull down $3 million a year in salary and bonuses as chairman. And we call BC/BS a “nonprofit”.
Quality health care? The American Academy of Dermatology reported you can get an appointment for Botox to get rid of those pesky wrinkles on your face in eight days—but it takes more than three times as long to find someone to evaluate a potentially cancerous mold on the third wrinkle from the left. Free-market health care follows the money. And the insurance companies only want to offer health care to people who don’t need it. Is this some kind of a revelation?
The next time your prescription drug “co-pay” creeps up, remember that the drug companies are making three times the profit rate of the average corporation. Still want your co-pay to foot the bill for the 80,000 full-time salesmen who knock on doctors’ doors to offer “incentives” to push the latest pill?
Medical “free-market efficiency” has one hand in my pocket and the other on my throat. I don’t need another focus group; I need a Louisville slugger.
We’re trying to break out of the “neo-liberal box” of privatization, deregulation and free trade that has been choking us for the last several decades. There is no ducking the argument of government control vs. market-based health care. There’s no shortcut. Health care is not just another commodity.
This is a street fight. We can win, even if it’s not in January. And sooner or later, we have to win this one.
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Right on Jeff! No serious health care reform proposal (or presidential candidate) should ignore the ravages of Bush’s Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 and his latest Medicare budget proposal, both of which endanger the most efficient, successful, and popular national health program. The fix is broadening the mix! Medicare should be improved and expanded to cover everyone.
Thanks Jeff. You are right..it’s time for us in the union movement to sharpen up what we stand for. We need to start educating union members and other working people. It’s time to stop shying away from the right-wing conservative scare tactics. If they start screaming about socialized medicine we have to defend the idea of health care as a right and educating our members about the superprofits of the pharmaceutical industry and insurance companies. Almost everyone I know has a horror story about the health care industry and someone in their family. Time for us to start helping them make sense of it all. Thanks for your thoughtful and insightful writing.
Hey Jeff, thanks for waking me back up to this issue. As important as it is, I’ve been finding myself losing steam on it. I will be reading your article to my crew tomorrow; I’m curious as to the reaction I will get.
Biggest issues we run into in my manufacturing local is government role and cost. It’s hard to compare costs since our own costs come in so many forms–contributions, so-pays, deductibles, etc., that they are hard to track. And in our union, CWA, what people pay varies a great deal, so its hard to compare union-wide. And phone workers like the folks on your pay less than most of the rest of us, so I’d be curious how they view the crisis. Good luck. –Jeff
I agree, Jeff. The labor movement really has to take the bull by the horns here, do the right thing, and put some of its still-considerable muscle behind a reform that will clearly benefit all working families in the U.S. I’d much rather see labor spend a few hundred million on a rough-and-tumble street campaign for real universal health care than waste much more time and money backing political candidates who tend to screw us once in power. It always hard to decide where to put resources in any human organization, but this one should be a no-brainer. If successful, such a campaign would do more than any innovation in a generation to bring millions of new people into the labor movement.
Hey Jeff,
I remember visiting a picket line in Marietta, Georgia when the Lockheed folks were out on strike in 2002. Health care costs were a big issue in that strike. One retiree told me that by the time he was done paying his healthcare, his pension check was entirely gone. That’s not much of a retirement.
The crazy thing about this whole healthcare debate, Clinton and Obama included, is that they’re making proposals that’ll cost a bundle of money. But healthcare is the one thing we don’t need to throw money at—we’re already spending so much that we could cover everyone under Medicare… if the insurance companies were dealt out of the game. That’s where 30 cents on the dollar is going, and what do we get for it? Pretty much just a lot of paperwork and denials and endless waiting on the phone.
You certainly are right about health care cutting into pension. A couple of months ago I called a pipe-fitter co-worker who retired from Dow Chemical in the same year as I did. Our health insurance went up 550% during the last 6 years.
You guys on this blog have done your homework. Excellent. Yes, about 30% of health care dollars are going to administration, including that large staff of people in my physicians’ office who must deal with the insurance companies … and the hospital registration clerk job that I had for about a year a few years ago. Boy oh boy did I learn a lot there about how complex things are.
But one of the biggest learnings I’ve had was my calculation and study during the last few days of the amount of money we will spend as families (and individuals) when we get H.R. 676 passed into law. Here is my resulting web page:
http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/Cost_Per_Family
Of course, it’s not just the money itself, but the stress on ourselves as individuals and families. I just realized within the last week that the words “peace of mind” have not been emphasized enough about single-payer national health insurance (that is, H.R. 676), so I included those words in the side-by-side comparison on that web page. See the Summary.
Yes, again, neither Clinton nor Obama are upsetting the health insurance companies that have given each of them hundreds of thousands of dollars. I call it losing twice: first, we would pay more money to the for-profit companies as part of the government forcing us to buy private plans; second, more of our tax dollars going to subsidies and incentives to health insurance companies as the government desperately tries to cover more of the uninsured.
As the top of the my Cost-Per-Family web page indicates, we very much need to go to single-payer.
– Bob Haiducek
Health and Health Care Advocate
Nine-Nine-Oh-Nine! Notes and Votes Campaign
http://www.99oh9.org
Oops … that web page wasn’t quite ready yesterday. The information is much easier to read now.
All you guys and gals who want to see before and after costs and the huge savings with single-payer national health insurance, select this link:
http://www.ninenineohnine.org/pages/Cost_Per_Family
For families and for single folks the huge savings of not paying the health insurance companies overwhelms the increase in taxes.
Bob
Great post, Jeff! Thank you for focusing on the facts.
I’m proud that my union has made the fight for HR 676 - the United States Health Insurance Act - part of its federal legislative agenda. HR 676 has been endorsed by 95 CLCs and Area Labor Federations as well as 33 state AFL-CIOs. (It calls for an improved and expanded Medicare system that would cover everyone in the country. For those who haven’t heard about it, please check it out.)
Let’s face it, America needs to get rid of the whole idea of job-based private health insurance. Jeff, you tell it well: even when we have ‘good insurance,’ if a family member has a health problem, these insurance companies simply hold the ball out for us like Lucy used to do for Charlie Brown.
And contract after contract we’re just mired in a squabble over health benefits - the premium, the co-pays, deductibles, prescription drug costs, caps, etc. As union members we really need to get health care off the bargaining table. Historically the labor movement has done well when it comes to moving the government for health benefits: labor’s efforts pushed Medicare through in 1965.
I really agree with the comments here, too. A publicly financed single payer national health program would help our AFL-CIO brothers and sisters immediately because they could get back to winning better wages and working conditions through collective bargaining. It would enhance the entire union movement by improving the lives of all working people.
Labor holds the power to win this one - and this historic fight is worth every effort. 33 state AFL-CIOs can’t be wrong: HR 676.
First I want to say Thank You for writing this.
Secondly, I think that many people’s fears of a publicly financed health care system is based on a disinformation campaign by the right wing and the insurance/pharma business.
The right wing is quick to throw out buzz words like “socialism” and “big government”. They are even quicker to say “do you want a government bureaucrat telling you where you have to go for health care?” Well, right now I have an HMO bureaucrat telling me what doctors I can and can’t go to. I have to call the same bureaucrats for permission to get certain tests done and see certain specialists. Right now we have a system where a private bureaucrat is dictating where I can go for health care.
The other argument is about wait times. We keep hearing horror stories about how in Canada, “people have to wait 89 years for an eye exam, and a person died in the emergency room from a hang nail after sitting there for 19 days.” Well, unfortunately, wait times are longer in the United States than in most industrialized nations. A report by business week showed that “American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems. ” The full report can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_28/b4042072.htm
Also, the “socialism” fear in unfounded. A plan like Conyers HR676 is not a “government takeover” of health care, it is a publicly financed national health plan. The doctors, hospitals, techs, health care providers or all types are still private. They are not going to become government employees. The only difference with Conyers’ plan is that everyone will have quality health care with a publicly financed plan. It will follow the worker no matter where he or she works. It will not be dependent on previous conditions or ability to pay. It will be for ALL!
The only way we can make this a reality is by MAJOR grassroots pressure. That’s the difference between government and business. We can change government if we (the grassroots) have enough power. Business is not accountable to us and never will be. The time has come for the working people of this country to collectively join forces to bring real health care to EVERYONE!
Thanks for the hard facts on wait times. This is one of the things we hear all the time from our members. Its especially helpful to have Business Week of all sources point out that the insurance company lobbyists are flat-out lying in response to Michael Moore’s movie Sicko. We showed it for the North Shore Labor Council last week, and 60 people turned out–the majority of them not the usual suspects, just pissed off health care “consumers”. So yeah, Michael Moore is an agitator and a clown–and more honest than the liars in whose hands we have placed our country’s health care. We need more agitators, and more clowns too, since laughs are a little hard to come by these days.
The more I look into this, the more corruption I see. Like the doctor who told his story in the New York Times Magazine a few months ago about getting paid $30,000 a year to pimp drugs–and getting cut off when his watchful handlers reported to the pharma bosses that he had actually mentioned to the potential “educated consumers” that there were studies which cast some doubt on the effectiveness of the pill.
The Massachustts plan for “universal coverage” mandates coverage for everyone in some form–but does nothing to control costs and offers bare bones plans to people who can’f afford them–then fines them if they don’t buy the plan! The costs of the plans go up, but the puny penalty to the companies if they don’t offer a plan is set forever. The head of the state board himself already admitted the plan will go belly-up without money from somewhere. This is an example of why I think the term “universal” has lost its value.
The Mass plan was supposed to help already insured folks by including a mandate to insure dependent children up to age 26–it seems like practically everyone I know has dependent children that age at home. But all three employers that my local bargains with–including GE–have gone to “self-insured” status to avoid the mandates. Not a single member of my local gained a single thing. It did help poorer workers with things like dental care, at least for now. But it increased the split between different sectors of working people.
This is becoming a “are you with us or against us” kind of issue. Unions will be judged on where they stand.
–Jeff
Hey Jeff,
I am late in note but thanks for sending the link to your article on health care @ AFL blog a couple of weeks ago. I sent it to folks at UMass Boston labor studies and I have appreciated your view and comments that have been posted. Your class based analysis and your approach KISS (keep it simple stupid) was grand. I concur with most comments. As you may recall we in the Metrowest Boston area were the first in the State to loose our community based hospitals to the for profit hospital chains. The reduction in quality of care and services for workers at the hospital and in our communities has been dramatic. Through our local Jobs with Justice coalition we have been able to agitate, organize and influence the communities to preserve essential services such as bilingual translators for patients, ESL for workers, free transportation between facilities, employee rights (union books) and a continuation of a free care pool. We have lost maternity ward, psych ward, some reductions in services offered, security guard jobs @ living wages, local hospital autonomy and more.
Since 1996 we have been through three sales to date and have had to fight for what little support we could gain through government intervention such as Department of Public Health. We started with Columbia/HCA, Columbia (a spin off) now on to # 8 for-profit Vanguard-several years ago they also acquired what was know as St. Vincent in Worcester. Our last transfer of ownership less than two years ago was potentially the most difficult as we anticipated a sale of most real estate surrounding Leonard Morse in Natick (called Metrowest Medical Center with Framingham Union)-they have 175 acres of prime real estate available at big bucks. Anyway-the answer is simple-educate, organize and mobilize focused on real health care reform while we strive to maintain all services for our community. And to think-when I moved to Natick from Dorchester in 1991 I actually voted for a board of directors for the hospital that was owned by our community for nearly 150 years at that time-how could they have survived for all that time with out ripping off “profit” from the community?
I trust all is going well and look forward to seeing you in the near future.
In Solidarity,
Wally
Quite an article if I do say so myself.
I used to be the head of medical billing for an outpatient, mental health, drug and alcohol abuse clinic, and the Santa Cruz Methadone Clinic.
Ten years ago, before I left Santa Cruz, Ca. the largest medical clinic in Santa Cruz, stopped taking what we the billers in the medical billing industry, called the “Blues Brothers”. This was due to a couple of the practices that the Blues Brothers of CA had become famous for. Not paying the claims!
If a biller were to put say three claims in an envelope and send them in, unless the three were from at least three different patients, two of the billing forms would be thrown out in the trash. Then when one knew full well what had been sent, one would call because a partial check would come for one of the 3 bills that had been sent together in a single envelope, and there would be nothing from the other two.
So only 2 claim forms would be put in an envelope and sent. If there were two forms, one was more likely to be paid for both. Especially if they were for 2 separate patients.
The second part of why the largest clinic refused to except the Blues Brothers, is that they paid below the contract rate for services. This was despite the increase in co-pays, and the increase of deductibles and the increase in the premiums. There were so many partial payments for services, that the clinic would have to go after the patient for the balance of what should have been paid by the insurance company.
In reality, what we had found out was that “Blues Brother” tossed claims so that they could earn more interest, and longer interest on the money that they held off paying out to the clinics and hospitals. So as long as they tossed claims, they could keep saying, “Please, resend that claim and we will look in to it”, the longer they could hold off payment.
They call that Not For Profit. I don’t know what finally happened. I had heard through the grape vine that the Blues Brothers had caved under the approaching deadline that the clinic had set for the last date of excepting their cards. But I can’t be sure about that.
So that’s my two cents on the headache of a job that I was in charge of for 4 years. I look at things ten years latter and I don’t see that anything has gotten any better.
Denise
Amen to all of the above. Question: why was Dennis Kucinich the ONLY presidential candidate to support HR 676? (Obama says he supports it “on principle” but favors for piecemeal approaches as “more practical.” My sense is that most of them consider it political suicide to confront the insurance industry head-on. I would argue that only aggressive advocacy for sinlgle payer by the labor movement can provide sufficient counterweight to persuade politicians to do the right thing. AND IT OUGHT TO BE AT THE TOP OF OUR PRIORITY LIST. The continuing meltdown of our health care system undermines everything else we try to do for our members.
Jeff Crosby is right–how we frame the issue is critical. It’s not about “universal coverage,” it’s about universal CARE.
A clear and uncompromising stand on this issue would identify organized labor with the vital interests of millions of Americans who may never have occasion to join a union, but will have a new respect for and appreciation of the role unions can play.
The recent results of the AFL-CIO survey on health care signals a retreat from what is truly needed to reform health care in the U.S.
The AFL-CIO’s conciliatory tone is a dismally-inadequate reaction to our nation’s health care crisis.
The AFL-CIO’s health care reform effort is “aimed at achieving reform in 2009 around basic principles that include providing quality health care to all with controlled costs and a public alternative to private insurance.” The plan to “reform” health care is unstated, and there is no language guaranteeing “health care to all”. Just words…..
A “single-payer” option was not offered as one of the survey’s choices!
Having health care as good as what their elected leaders receive was the only real option. And the AFL-CIO is making a big deal out of the fact that 85% of the respondents chose it.
What “elected leaders receive” is cafeteria-style coverage. That means you get to pick the coverage you want. The more you pick the more you pay. Members of Congress are part of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. They have a choice of several health plans. Some are HMOs while others are regular insurance preferred provider programs. They select a plan they like and the federal government pays a large portion of the premium. Politicians pay the rest, along with deductibles and co-payments. For more expensive plans with a lot of choices of doctors and hospitals and more services, members of Congress pay more. For the basic plan they pay a smaller premium.
Let us not forget that members of Congress are paid approximately $170,000 per year. That is 425% more than the median incomes for U.S. families. Congress can afford Cadillac coverage. The rest of us cannot. We’d have to “settle” for inferior health insurance.
The AFL-CIO scheme would also provide you with the option of having private health insurance “with controlled costs”. Cafeteria-style coverage is a component of “controlled costs”. Another possible piece of the “controlled costs” pie could require insurers to spend 85% of the premium dollars they receive to fund benefits. That sounds so-so until another layer of the onion is peeled back. Salaries, bonuses, operating costs, etc. could be included in the 85%. If so, that would mean that insurance companies could retain 15% of every premium dollar they receive…after “expenses” were paid. Imagine that! Imagine being assured of a 15% surplus after paying all your bills…year after year after year. Wouldn’t that be great!
Let’s, however, give them the benefit of the doubt. Let’s say they really had to pay 85% out of every premium dollar for benefits. How would that lower your premiums? How would that prevent insurance companies from interfering in doctor/patient decision-making?
Here we go again…advocating retreat as a strategy.
In 1955 about 35% of America’s workforce was organized. Most union members were then in the private sector.
In 1962 public employees won certain collective bargaining rights. Since 1963, the growth in public-sector organizing represents a significant percentage of overall union membership.
Even with the addition of public employees, “cold warrior” business-unionism and red-baiting witch hunts led to a drop in union membership.
In 1981 union density had fallen to just 21%. Following the Reagan administration’s mass firing of PATCO air traffic controllers that same year, union density has been in a continual decline. It is more than coincidence that labor’s decline accelerated following its retreat when it refused to support the PATCO workers.
In 1993 the Clinton administration – over protests from labor – jammed NAFTA down our throats. By then union membership had fallen to 15%. Labor retreated again.
Under Bush’s “Patriot Act” and other anti-union legislation wrapped in the flag, union membership has further declined.
Here we are in 2008, and only 12% of U.S. workers are organized.
There is a pattern. Every time organized labor has retreated, the percentage of American workers belonging to unions has gone down.
This latest retreat from true health care reform offers yet another ominous example of how “going along to get along” unionism fundamentally fails to serve working class America.
What’s more, the AFL-CIO’s use of the word “reform” leaves many questions unanswered. Its “buy now and we’ll fill in the conditions later” approach is outrageous!
There is a piece of legislation that already has all the i’s dotted and the t’s crossed. It is HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. (“Expanded & Improved Medicare For All Bill”). Under HR 676, there are no “yet to be decided” blank pages. And HR 676 covers everyone for everything, anywhere and at any time. “Everybody in; nobody out”.
HR 676 would provide comprehensive coverage for all medically-necessary care. The unemployed, the under-employed, the poor, the near-poor, the middle class, the upper middle class and the filthy rich would all have the same right to access quality care.
Many State Federations have endorsed HR 676. Over 350 different unions or affiliates have endorsed the bill. So, too, have numerous faith-based and community organizations. 90 Democrats in the House are also co-sponsoring the bill. What part of the call for HR 676 doesn’t the leadership of the AFL-CIO understand? Who’s calling the shots? Is this another example of a top-down strategy of retreat?
Other ominous possibilities need to be addressed: While on the one hand auto manufacturers – as an example - complain that $1500 is added to the cost of each car to cover employee health benefits, on the other hand they have failed to embrace HR 676. Why? HR 676 would reduce corporate America’s contributions for health care by billions of dollars. Why the reluctance?
One possibility is that if we had universal, single-payer health care, corporate America would lose an excuse for closing plants and factories here in the U.S. and moving them offshore. Corporate America would also lose the health care hammer it holds over the heads of working class America. If everyone had publicly-financed health insurance, that otherwise huge problem would be removed from collective bargaining. Unions would be able to devote more energy to securing jurisdiction, making work sites safer, protecting pensions, and representing workers in a host of other ways too.
As a person who has helped negotiate many different labor agreements I have never been part of a committee that has agreed to “cafeteria-style coverage”. Cafeteria-coverage is not in the best interests of workers. That is one of several reasons I find the dismally-inadequate AFL-CIO position so appalling. So what if 85% of the people who responded to the survey said they “want health care as good as what their elected leaders receive”? Why weren’t they given a single-payer option? If you rig the questions the answers will likewise be rigged. It’s like finding breathing better than its alternative.
What is gained by belonging to the AFL-CIO (or any other confederation of unions) if retreat is part of the strategy?
A huge, over-whelming number of union members support HR 676. Who the hell is the Executive Council representing?
Reject the AFL-CIO retreat. Demand HR 676. Demand that the leadership of your unions do the same! Demand that the Executive Council have a full debate on HR 676 versus anything else. Make that debate public! Let’s see where everyone stands on supporting [or opposing] single-payer and why!
Publicly financed, privately delivered single-payer health care is the solution! And it’s a matter of life and death.
P.S. I have been a proud union member for over 40 years. (My union has endorsed HR 676.) I was brought up understanding that a united, militant labor movement can achieve social and economic justice for working class families. “Going along to get along” will not bring social and economic justice!
One thing I would point out is that the era of “big guv’ment” has not ended. To the contrary, government spending (even without the costs of the Iraq war) have increased. The increase, however, is not directed towards working people or the poor. Rather, there has been a sustained and increasing massive transfer of wealth from the government treasury; aka “the people” (via our tax dollars) to corporations and the wealthy. These transfers are often hidden but nontheless they constitute government spending. One example is the fact that many of the largest corporations in this country pay no taxes whatsoever, and those that do pay taxes pay a proportionately infintesimal amount compared to net earnings. That, my friends, is massive wealth transfer away from “the people” that could otherwise be used to fund truly universal, single-payer health care coverage. There are countless examples of wealth transfers from the bottom up, rather than from the top down. I would be remiss by not saying hello to Garret V. and telling Jeff his blog is great. Up here in Vancouver, B.C., health care is available for all and, in my short experience thus far, excellent.
Union Labor promotes lazy workers. Why on earth would you let someone negotiate for you?!?! Do you understand that the first thing your Union boss wants in a negotiation of contract is how they are going to get your money?!?! They don’t care about you, they only care about your money!!! Use your head. Think about it. NAFTA was initiated by CLINTON! This is the same man that you voted for! You voted to send jobs out of the country. Come on people. Union Labor is declining because it is abused. It was once needed. Now most unions are lazy workers hiding behind the AFL-CIO. I will never encourage union labor, because you are allowing someone to determine how much money you will make. Then don’t forget, the only rich union members are the ones leading you, and taking your dues!