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Central Labor Councils Making April Health Care Month |
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The Chicago Federation of Labor (CFL) had a standing-room only crowd for its April meeting last week, as local union leaders took a detailed look at the AFL-CIO/Working America 2008 Health Care for America Survey and discussed how to get its message out to lawmakers in the upcoming elections.
That April 1 meeting was one of nearly 50 central labor council meetings around the country last week in which grassroots union leaders got a look behind the numbers from the survey in which nearly 27,000 took part. They also heard some of the personal stories from the 7,500 respondents who took the time to recount their personal experiences with the nation’s broken health care system. Throughout April, more than 300 central labor councils are dedicating their monthly meetings to helping local unions mobilize their members around health care reform as part of Labor 2008’s drive to Turn Around America.
The local union leaders at these special health care meetings—where the labor councils report their attendance has been about double the usual turnout—are being asked to sign up for Labor 2008.
The survey results reinforced what local union activists have learned during their difficult negotiations over health care with employers and from the experiences of their own members—health care will be a major issue in the 2008 presidential and congressional campaigns. Some 79 percent of respondents said health care will be a key issue when they cast their ballots, and 97 percent say they do plan to vote this fall.
Discussions around the survey results quickly turned to action. In Illinois, the Bloomington-Normal Trades and Labor Assembly plans to distribute thousands of fact cards that local unions will hand out in break rooms and on job sites and workplaces outlining where the presidential candidates stand on health care reform.
The cards will show how Sen. John McCain’s plan is a rehash of President Bush’s failed proposal. It won’t cut costs, won’t cover more people and would raise taxes on employers and employees alike, pushing workers out of job-based plans and leaving them at the mercy of the private insurance market.
Local union leaders at the Hudson (N.J.) County Central Labor Council and the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council say they will take what they learned and build their local union meetings around health care reform and the November elections. The Big Sky Central Labor Council in Helena, Mont., plans to grill candidates on health care reform and use their answers in deciding who gets support and who doesn’t.
Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:
Our job…is to elect a president and Congress that will vote to Turn Around America. Our Labor 2008 program is the best organized, best equipped and best supported political effort ever mounted by unions. Health care is a key issue for organizing working families to participate.
The choice between John McCain and either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is clear. McCain wants to hand individuals the burden and the bill for health care. Clinton and Obama want government to enact health reform legislation that would help working families, unions and responsible employers.
For more on the AFL-CIO’s drive for health care reform, click here. Click here to become a health care activist.
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Paid for by the AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Political Contributions Committee, www.aflcio.org, and not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee.
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Is this the Healthcare bill that the Gov. of Illinois signed into law?
Illinois Public Act 93-0973, formerly House Bill 2268, creates the Health Care Justice Act and encourages Illinois to implement a health care plan that provides access to a full range of preventive, acute and long-term health care services, and maintains and improves the quality of health care services.
…. all Illinois residents will be required to obtain health care coverage and those under 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) will have subsidized coverage options available to them.
This is another mandated “healthcare” plan similar to Hillary’s.
If I am not mistaken, John Sweeney endorsed this law alongside SEIU’s leaders.
If this is the direction the AFL CIO plans to go, ALL 390+ union organizations that are in the AFL CIO and support HR 676, single payer health care, should quit paying dues to the National.
Mr. Sweeney, when asked if he supported single payer:
“I recognize that there is tremendous support for single payer,” a subdued Sweeney said. “But as the Governor has said, it is important that we move on health care coverage now with what we have the political will to achieve. That doesn’t mean we aren’t going to continue to strive for a single payer health care system.”
Oh yeah? when?
And that is the problem with all our elected officials today. Inaction. Waiting for the right moment. Well, the time to do something is NOW, not tomorrow, not next week. People are dying every day because of the horrible inaction of our leaders - from the Iraq fiasco, to Katrina, to the weakening of product safety guidelines, to the lack of health care…the list goes on and on. Is a stagnant, ineffective, inactive government as bad as a government that overtly does horrible things? To those that continue to suffer and die at the expense of our government, you know what the answer is.