Honk if You Don’t Want a McBush Health Care Plan

by Mike Hall, May 27, 2008

Rush-hour drivers navigating a major rotary (that’s “traffic circle” for those of us outside the New England crowd) in Falmouth, Mass., were laying on their horns and waving last week. But not in anger. They were showing their support for the two dozen union members rallying at the rotary—and out of traffic—for health care reform.

The union members and leaders carried signs reading “Healthcare: It costs too much! It covers too little! It excludes too many! And it’s getting worse!” and “It’s Time to Turn  Around America.”

The action was part of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO’s annual Gompers-Murray-Meany Educational Conference, where this year’s participants focused on the nation’s broken health care system.

Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert J. Haynes says the nation’s workers—like those rush-hour commuters—are bearing the brunt of the health coverage crisis.

Across our country, people are forced to choose between prescription bills and feeding their children, working families enter bankruptcy when they can’t cover emergency health care bills, and many forfeit preventative care because they simply cannot afford it. The union members here today are covered thanks to collective bargaining, but non-union workers don’t have that benefit.

They’re left uninsured and forced to make impossible choices. And those with health care, union or not, all agree that it’s too expensive and is not the high quality we deserve or need. The state of our healthcare system is outrageous.

Unions in Massachusetts are focusing on health care as a major issue in mobilizing their members for the November elections. In Massachusetts, as in other states, unions are making sure voters get a careful look at the candidates’ health care proposals, including those of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has proposed more of the McSame—Bush’s recycled, failed health care plans.

McCain has proposed a health care plan that would create a new tax on working families without cutting costs or covering more people. Millions could lose coverage and be left on their own at the mercy of insurance companies.

Earlier this month, with the focus on health care and McCain’s plan, union members launched the first round of door-to-door walks, part of the AFL-CIO Labor 2008 political mobilization program.

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