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1. JerryWells on 26.04.2009 at 17:51 (Reply)

   I took this survey. No mention of single-payer health plan.
   How many horror stories does the survey consider to be enough?
   Are anecdotal personal stories, even hundreds or thousands, ever enough
   to convince the Democrats of the nature of the crisis?
   For several years it has been known that approximately 50 MILLION are without health care insurance.
   With MILLIONS of workers losing their jobs and their employer based health insurance, is it not evident by now that an employer based health insurance has not worked and will not work.
   EMPLOYERS DO NOT WANT TO PAY ANYTHING FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES HEALTH INSURANCE. Every “benefit” cuts immediately into profits. Thus the auto industry dumped retirement benefits and retirement health benefits onto the UAW and created a VEBA corporation, that will perhaps give another source of income for union bureaucrats.
   Credit cards have been maxed out trying to pay outrageous health care bills. One half of credit card bankruptcies are due to medical bills.
   Doesn’t the AFL-CIO “leadership” understand these conditions that have existed FOR YEARS?? Aren’t there enough AFL-CIO researchers on staff to investigate this question thoroughly by now AND COME TO A DECISION IN SUPPORT OF UNIVERSAL SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH INSURANCE?
   How to pay for it? Everyone must pay in to system, with no exceptions for wealthy or corporations. Initial funding should be deducted out of the MILITARY BUDGET and WALL STREET BAILOUT MONEY!.
   THERE ARE BILLIONS OF TRILLIONS AVAILABLE FOR UNENDING WARS AND BAILING OUT WALL STREET GANGSTER CAPITALISTS.
   BUT NOTHING FOR SOLVING THIS HEALTH CARE CRISIS!
   AND WATCH OUT! OBAMA IS PLANNING TO CUT BACK ON SOCIAL SECURITY AND MEDICARE BECAUSE OF THE TRILLIONS WASTED. AND THE *&^%$#@ DEMOCATS AND OBAMA, FUNDED BY THESE SAME CORPORATIONS, ARE ALL GOING TO “BE REASONABLE” IN “DIFFICULT TIMES”, AND CARRY OUT THE ORDERS OF THEIR COPORATE MASTERS.
   WHEN IS THE AFL-CIO GOING TO RAISE HELL ABOUT THIS DESTRUCTION OF WORKING PEOPLE!
   THE TIME IS NOW!

2. JerryWells on 26.04.2009 at 23:37 (Reply)

   Here is a link to an article on who in Washington is opposing single-payer health care.

   http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/04/the-profiteers-of-suffering/
   ———————————————————————————
   The Profiteers of Suffering

   The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer
   by Russell Mokhiber / April 25th, 2009

   Most people, when they arrive in Washington, D.C., see it for what it is — a cesspool of corruption.
   …
   The result — profits and wealth for the corporate elite — death, disease and destruction for the American people.

   Nowhere does this corrupt, calculating transformation do more damage than in the area of health care.
   …
   The will of the American people is being held up by a handful of organizations and individuals who profit off the suffering of the masses.

   And the will of the American people will not be done until this criminal elite is confronted and defeated.

   (Remember, virtually the entire industrialized world — save for us, the U.S. — makes it a crime to allow for-profit health insurance corporations to make money selling basic health insurance.)
   …

   1. garyro1 on 27.04.2009 at 21:25 (Reply)

      I am in agreement with you Jerry. I attended several healthcare roundtables/meetings this month and the single payer options were, for the most part, not included. Single payer folks were excluded from Obama healthcare summits.

      HR676 is the most sane and sensible plan on the table. What gives folks? Seems some among us (orginized labor) are willing to sacrifice the high ground on the healthcare issue and make a deal with those insurance and drug folks whom have made the healthcare of the nation a disaster.

      It seems some are even willing to surrender before ink hits the paper on this issue. What kind of negoation is that?

3. thekidde on 27.04.2009 at 11:40 (Reply)

   It is time the working class took back our country. We can give the oligarchs, corporatists and “top 1%” a choice - cease the plunder of the commons or suffer the consequences of a full revolt. The Brits didn’t like it in 1776, doubt the poobahs will like it in 2009 or 10 (whenever the once apathetic middle gets ticked enough to take to the streets).

4. topgun on 27.04.2009 at 11:58 (Reply)

   Jerry, I’m sure the AFL-CIO leadership is well aware of the points you are making. It’s on record, “in principle,” in support of single payer. The problem is that it does not consider single payer to be politically feasible, and that’s because the people in Congress who are considered to be organized labor’s best allies are either beholden to the health insurance industry, or afraid to cross it, lest it sink its millions into defeating them next time they’re up for re-election.

   The problem for me is that what’s considered “smart politics” isn’t necessarily very smart. The plan Obama and Congressional Democrats are pushing as a “realistic alternative” to single payer is, quite simply, fiscally irrresponsible. Without controlling costs or eliminating the waste represented by our private insurance systrem, there is no way the feds can scare up the cash to provide coverage for everyone, with or without a “public option.” They’ve already gone down this road in Massachusetts, with disastrous results.

   At the local and state level, unions continue to sign on to single payer–hundreds have done so already. The trick is for them to make sure their elected representatives know where they stand and that ignoring them on this issue will carry a political price. If enough momentum builds at the grass roots, maybe the AFL-CIO lesadership will start throwing its weight around the way we all know it is capable of doing, and we’ll get some results.

5. Rich A. on 27.04.2009 at 13:42 (Reply)

   When we allow ourselves to be confined within the narrow parameters of a debate over what is or is not “politically feasible” we lose.

   At one time hiring halls were not considered “politically feasible”. We won them anyway! Same with safety regulations, health care, pensions, and the right to be treated with dignity at work. None of those things were considered “politically feasible”, yet we achieved them

   We should all be quite thankful that the heroes and heroines of labor’s early days didn’t confine the struggle for social and economic justice to what was “politically feasible”. Instead they fought for the things that working class families needed!

   The survey omitted single-payer as an option. Despite the fact that an overwhelming number of rank and file union members – and 66% of the people in our nation – support national single-payer health care insurance, it wasn’t even offered as a choice!

   We must expand the parameters of the debate!

   “Health care costs are being treated as if they were largely an economic problem, but they are not. To be solved they will have to be treated as an ethical problem”- Lester Thurow, PhD

   “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane”-Martin Luther King, Jr.

   We must expand the parameters of the debate to include this question to lawmakers: “Are you willing and prepared to represent the people you are sworn to serve ethically and humanely?”

   We must also be willing to lay down our tools and march until health care justice is won!

   People had better wake up! There is no “President Obama health care plan”. It is a concept. It has not been written! It would be foolish for any of us to sign onto a blank document that Congress is yet to write. {(If you trust Congress, then you must be satisfied with the crap we’ve been handed over the past 30 years.)

   HR 676 is a bill pending in Congress. The i’s are dotted and the t’s are crossed. It is the United States National Health Insurance Act (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All). It is what most labor people and most of the residents of our country want.

   Labor leaders need to run hard and catch up with the rank and file. We workers want single-payer!

6. JerryWells on 27.04.2009 at 16:52 (Reply)

   Preview this DVD free on-line. This DVD is a start to understanding the economy FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF WORKING PEOPLE. This includes union “leaders” who forever sit on their failed “status quo” ” excuses to accept “politically feasible” defeat and destruction of unions and working people

   CAPITALISM HITS THE FAN
   Richard Wolff on the Economic Meltdown

   http://www.capitalismhitsthefan.com/

   With breathtaking clarity, renowned University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Richard Wolff breaks down the root causes of today’s economic crisis, showing how it was decades in the making and in fact reflects seismic failures within the structures of American-style capitalism itself. Wolff traces the source of the economic crisis to the 1970s, when wages began to stagnate and American workers were forced into a dysfunctional spiral of borrowing and debt that ultimately exploded in the mortgage meltdown. By placing the crisis within this larger historical and systemic frame, Wolff argues convincingly that the proposed government “bailouts,” stimulus packages, and calls for increased market regulation will not be enough to address the real causes of the crisis - in the end suggesting that far more fundamental change will be necessary to avoid future catastrophes. Richly illustrated with motion graphics and charts, this is a superb introduction designed to help ordinary citizens understand, and react to, the unraveling economic crisis.

   —————————————————————————-
   From what I read, I would guess at this point, EFCA and single-payer health care will not pass Congress or Obama. Especially without some major political power move by organized labor that goes beyond letter writing, demonstrating, etc. other impotent gestures.

   ******* A FANTASY FOR CHANGE *********

   Warning to Democrats and all other corporate politicians: If the Democratic controlled Congress and President do not pass EFCA, Single Payer health care, and other essential measures to protect the well being and economic survival of America’s working people, the Labor movement will do the following:

   1. We hearby issue a call for a founding convention of a new national political party that represents the economic interests of working people. Both Democratic and Republican Parties, forever controlled by corporate money and agendas, have failed to promote the economic interests “of, by and for” the people.

   2. Mass media, even NPR and PBS, forever under control of corporate profit interests, forever vilify the needs of working people. Thus we are establishing new informational, educational programming and media. We demand equal time on television, radio and print media to communicate these needs and perspectives.

   3. We are creating a new political party, and new media, to expand the education and organization of working people to create a new economy … a new society… that seeks economic justice for the vast majority of working people in the U.S. and internationally.

   4. To secure these modest goals are now essential to the very survival of humanity.
   Wars for profit and oil must end. Slash the war budget by 50%, shut down the 700 plus foreign bases, massively consolidate the 6900 domestic bases, to use funds for social purposes.

   The economic institutions that dominate out economy must be taken out of the hands of corrupt gangster capitalists and be controlled by the people. Thus it is essential to nationalize the banks and provide regulation to end the massive corruption that has brought the collapse of U.S. and global capitalism. Credit Card debt, student loan debt must come under federal control to end the usurious rates and debt-slavery.

   Global warming continues unabated. The polar ice caps are rapidly diminishing. Oil spills and environmental destruction continue despite historic profits of the oil companies. Coal companies desecrate the mountains, the streams and create vast air pollution. Thus we call for the nationalization of the entire energy industry (OIL, COAL, NUCLEAR, GAS, etc.) so that non-polluting, sustainable forms of energy can be developed.

   Universal single-payer health insurance must end the greed for profit driven health care “business”

   Universal access to quality education through college should be free.

   Millions of new jobs can be created from filling the needs of society for rebuilt infrastructure, affordable mass housing, new forms of public transportation, new forms of sustainable energy.
   All employees of existing “defense” industries would be retrained or retired so as not to victimize workers in the transition.

   (I am sure you can add a few things? This could happen if the political “will” and leadership existed. We are hundreds of millions. The corrupt looters on Wall Street and bankers (millionaires and billionaires) are a tiny minority.)

7. TrueDemocrat on 27.04.2009 at 16:58 (Reply)

   Rich A: well put!
   I believe the health care lobbyists have already jumped in bed with the new Administration at the White House. Pres. Obama, who is on record of supporting single payer, now wants it off the table in the “talks” for “reforming” the health care crisis. Well the truth is labor worked their tails off getting Obama in office, now he owes us the return favor.
   As for Pres. Sweeney, he supports single payer but prefers employer based. Hello! workers across the US are getting their coverage cut or having to pay for their health care 100% out of pocket. How is employer based HC the answer?
   Let’s hope, since Sweeney won’t go on record and address this issue, his successor will not be a carbon copy of him in policy, that the next Pres. of the AFL-CIO will endorse single payer and actively participate in getting single payer back in the talks and get Nancy Pelosi to get HR 676 on the floor for a vote and Harry Reid in the Senate to get SB 703 on the floor for a vote.

   In the mean time, we all have to contact our Reps. & Senators and get them to co-sponsor these 2 bills.

   Put Single Payer in the Survey!

   By Andy Coates, MD
   Steward in the Public Employees Federation (PEF), AFL-CIO,
   A statewide New York union affiliated with AFT and SEIU

   In an attempt to find out what union members think about the health care crisis and its solution, the AFL-CIO recently asked union members and supporters to complete a health care survey.

   http://www.aflcio.org/issues/healthcare/survey/index_survey.cfm?source=hc_survey_wfn

   The problem with the survey is that it does not present the full range of opinions union members have, and nowhere in the survey is single payer, or Medicare for All, or HR 676 even mentioned as an option.

   Question #21 in the survey offers only variations on keeping for-profit insurance companies in the center of health care. There is no choice to go to a single payer, publicly funded system that covers all medically necessary care as in HR 676.

   Everyone knows that single payer is supported by many within labor. Over 500 union organizations, including 39 state AFL-CIO’s and 126 Central Labor Councils, have endorsed HR 676 which is co-sponsored by 76 members in the House of Representatives. Recently, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, a friend of labor, introduced SB 703, a single payer bill, in the Senate.

   Since a large section of unions and union members supports a single payer solution to the health care crisis, it is unfair to construct a survey that completely ignores opinions from single payer advocates.

   The AFL-CIO has a crucial role to play in the health care debate now unfolding. It is important that those who speak for labor in this debate are able to reflect the vital and growing single payer sentiment within our union movement.

   We encourage you to write President Sweeney, jsweeney@aflcio.org, and urge
   him to include the single payer choice in the survey seeking the views of union members on health care. You could also fax President Sweeney at: (202) 508-6946.

8. robertwestafer on 28.04.2009 at 04:38 (Reply)

   Real Healthcare Reform: Changing the Incentives and the Rules of the Game

   If you have the financial resources of Bill Gates or Warren Buffett you needn’t pay money to a health plan each month, since if you get sick or injured – even very seriously - you have more than enough money to pay all your medical bills yourself.

   But those of us with significantly less financial resources must find some other means of dealing with the thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of medical expenses that we might incur should a serious illness or injury be our fate.

   Enter the concept of “health insurance”.

   Large numbers of individuals and/or their employers put some money each month into one or another big pot called a “health plan”. Those individuals who remain essentially healthy and then perhaps suddenly die or leave a particular health plan for some other reason – if they have put more into the pot than was taken out to pay their medical expenses - wind up helping to pay the medical bills of those who become seriously acutely ill or injured or develop chronic illness and have a lot of medical expenses.

   Many members of health plans don’t seem to fully understand or find it convenient to forget that when they become seriously ill or injured, for the most part their medical bills are being paid by the members of their health plan who are and remain healthy.

   For this system to work - large numbers of people pooling their money to pay the medical bills of which ever members of the plan become seriously ill or injured - rules must be established as to when and how much money may be taken out of the pot e.g. “legitimate” doctor bills and hospital bills. Equally important is keeping track of the amount of money that is being put into the pot each month in premiums paid by health plan members or their employers. If too much is being paid out in expenses as compared with the amount being received in premiums, the pot will become empty and the health plan will become insolvent.

   As previously mentioned, the monthly premiums paid by individuals or their employers go into the health plan’s big pot from which “covered” healthcare expenses are paid. But also paid out of this pot are all the health plan’s administrative expenses including what may be big salaries and golden parachutes for CEO’s and other “healthcare executives” – individuals who frequently are paid to find technicalities of one sort or another in the health plan’s agreements so the health plan can deny or reduce payments, raise premiums, cancel insurance, or in one way or another minimize or exclude “bad risks” from the health plan. All such activities are done to enable the health plan to make a profit and remain in business.

   But before a healthcare system made up of health plans as described above is really going to have a chance of meeting the needs of all of their members and simultaneously be able to keep costs under control - something we all want - something else very critically important must happen.

   We speak about our “healthcare system” and understand that the continually rising costs we are experiencing are clearly unsustainable. Although a lot of illness and many injuries are actually preventable, we rarely focus on the fact that most of the participants in what should be more appropriately called our “sickness and injury care system” actually do not have any significant financial incentive to spend their time and energy in genuinely promoting health and helping prevent disease and injury.

   Much to the contrary. Other than the actual members of a health plan and their employers and perhaps the employees of some health plans, most participants in our sickness and injury care system - because of the way they are paid - have an enormous (if unspoken) incentive for massive amounts of disease and injury to continue to occur in America. From a financial point of view, the more disease and injury that occurs, the better. And if the disease and injury is very serious and requires a lot of tests and complicated treatment, so much the better - just as long as those unfortunate individuals who are diseased or injured are “covered” by “good insurance”, i.e. health plans that are good reliable bill payers.

   This is not to say that there are not some excellent and very dedicated and hardworking doctors and other health professionals - who are generally paid to care for illness and injury on a fee for service basis - who nevertheless are attempting to essentially work themselves out of a job by strongly encouraging health promotion and disease and injury prevention with their patients. And it also should be recognized that some existing health plans – e.g. Kaiser and Group Health - combine insurance, doctors, and hospitals into a single entity in a way that provides everyone - including all their doctors - a real incentive to spend time and effort with patients on prevention as well as on early diagnosis and treatment. But unfortunately the above two examples do not apply to most of our sickness and injury care system in America.

   For the most part because of the way they are compensated, most doctors and other professional providers, most acute care hospitals and long term care facilities, pharmaceutical manufactures and pharmacists, medical and surgical equipment manufacturers, personal injury and malpractice attorneys among others depend mightily on massive amounts of disease and injury occurring in America and would be significantly negatively impacted if a lot of the preventable illnesses and injuries were actually prevented. This must be changed.

   Unless the incentives and rules are changed to give as many participants as possible a real stake in prevention, early diagnosis and treatment, and maximizing health and minimizing disease and injury, getting healthcare costs under control in America is impossible. Making very significant changes in the incentives and the rules of the game is the real task of “healthcare reform”.

   For example, why not financially incentivize individuals to be healthy? It is well recognized that engaging in regular exercise, abstaining from tobacco, and eating a healthy diet so as to maintain a reasonably normal body weight are all significant factors in helping to promote an individual’s health and wellness. These healthy behaviors can all be confirmed by simple tests in a doctor’s office. Why shouldn’t those individuals who practice these health promoting behaviors pay significantly less to their health plan than those who don’t?

   To really reform healthcare we must figure out ways – through changes in incentives and the rules of the game - to actually prevent a lot of what is preventable, to maximize early diagnosis and treatment, and minimize disease and injury with all their associated costs. Most importantly we must find ways for essentially every participant to be part of our “healthcare system” not just a part of our “sickness and injury care system”. We need to design a system where everyone has a genuine and significant financial stake in health promotion and disease and injury prevention, rather than merely giving lip service to all this while actually earning one’s livelihood solely from the treatment of illnesses and injuries. This is the challenge.

   Significant changes in the rules of the game for our legal system – tort reform – is also critically important so that the gaming of the system now being done by personal injury and malpractice attorneys and their clients can be ended and so that the exorbitant costs to physicians and other professionals for malpractice insurance can be dramatically reduced.

   Truly transforming our “sickness and injury care system” into a “healthcare system” by making significant changes in the incentives and the rules of the game would seem to be a formidable task and one that has probably never really been done before anywhere else in the world. But it is a worthy task and a critically important task for the future of America and its people. If it is not done by us, who will do it? If it is not done now, when will it be done?

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