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AFL-CIO-Led Coalition Moves Boardroom Votes on Universal Health Reform |
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Shareholders scored victories in corporate boardrooms across the nation this spring, gaining the right to vote on universal health care proposals spearheaded by the AFL-CIO, as Daniel Pedrotty from the AFL-CIO Office of Investment explains.
Because of an initiative led by the AFL-CIO and a broad coalition of investors, shareholders have won the right to vote on universal health reform proposals at several corporate annual board meetings this spring.
The proposals urge corporations to adopt the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies’ principles on health care reform, namely that:
- Health care coverage should be universal.
- Health care coverage should be continuous.
- Health care coverage should be affordable to individuals and families.
- The health insurance strategy should be affordable and sustainable for society.
- Health insurance should enhance health and well-being by promoting access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered and equitable.
In the current system, ever-rising premiums hurt the competitiveness of companies that provide health insurance for their employees. A significant portion of these premiums, some $1,000 a year, covers the health care needs of the uninsured. As a result, companies that provide health insurance for their employees subsidize the health care needs of the uninsured.
Employees and retirees also are struggling with rising health care costs, and this is a big factor in the squeeze on U.S. families. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the cumulative growth in health insurance premiums between 2002-2007 was 78 percent, compared with cumulative wage growth of 19 percent and cumulative inflation of 17 percent.
Many companies, including IBM & General Electric Co., have adopted these principles after engaging with investors. Investors also have voted on this proposal at several company annual meetings, including Boeing, General Motors Corp., Comcast and United Technologies.
As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney puts it:
Shareholder efforts on health care have made clear that fixing America’s health care system is an urgent matter for businesses and investors, just as it is for workers.
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Hey AFL-CIO….baloney!
#4 and #5 leave [denial of] insurance companies in the mix. Such a program is doomed to fail, unless you own plenty of stock in insurance companies.
Why is labor so timid, so meek, so conservative? HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act is the solution to our nation’s health care woes. Are labor’s “leaders” too ideologically-challenged to see that?
Band-aids to fix heart attacks won’t get the job done. Phony incrementalism (like we’ve had for 40 years) has gotten us to where we are at.
Get with it AFL-CIO (and CTW). Either that or get the hell out of the way so that we WORKERS can fight for health care justice!
Everyone of the Presidential candidates wants Universal Health care. Yet none of the their plans eliminates the profit driven insurance companies and Big Pharmas. Universal means everyone will get covered. But at what price? If people can’t afford it now, how will they afford it later if costs keep going up?
Pres. Sweeney puts it:
Shareholder efforts on health care have made clear that fixing America’s health care system is an urgent matter for businesses and investors, just as it is for workers.
Businesses and investors have got to be clear that nothing will get accomplished if told year after year by the insurance companies that “rising” medical costs are the reason premiums go up. The Pharmas keep raising their prices where in Canada you can get the same meds at 50-60% less. I’m no rocket scientist, but I refuse to believe this crap insurance companies and the Pharmas are saying!!
The solution is a single payer health care system. Businesses and families will pay less, the insurance companies will quit getting richer on the backs of the insured!
I totally agree with Rich A. HR 676 is the solution. AFL-CIO is going to bed with the insurance companies and forgetting its members.
It is MURDER when 18,000 people die each year because they have no health insurance, are under-insured, or denied treatment/services by, yes, THE F—ING insurance companies. It is total neglect when hard working families pay out the nose for premiums and the insurance company decides what treatments/services cover you, not the physicians. It is time we take back America and get out of this corporate-run society. Prices for all the essentials we need to live on are getting out of control, all set by corporate America.
The AFL CIO needs to listen to its members.
As of May 26th.:
HR 676 has been endorsed by 421 union organizations in 48 states including 108 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 33 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA & AK). A majority!!
What is the AFLCIO going to do ignore us?, put sanctions on us? or join the rank and file workers to achieve our goal? I bet your health care is a hell of alot better than alot us us!
In this democratic country, we elect the president, we can
impeach or remove him!
38,000 Health Insurance Executives will be in San Francisco. In solidarity with protests on June 19th and in celebration of Juneteenth, the anniversary of the emancipation from slavery and now our fight for emancipation from the insurance companies, health care activists around the country are organizing demonstrations at insurance companies with patients, nurses, doctors, social workers, and Americans of every stripe protesting the National Health Insurance industry to say:
Health Care YES! Health Insurance NO! Guaranteed, Single Payer Health Care NOW!
TAKE ACTION JUNE 19th!