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Millions Lose Health Coverage Since Recession and Job-Based Health Care Declines |
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The decline in the share of workers with employer-provided health care, the dramatic increase in the number of workers losing their health insurance along with their jobs, plus reports that employers are planning to shift even more health costs to workers, highlights the desperate need for comprehensive health care reform for all.
(Tell us what you think should be included in comprehensive health care reform. Take the 2009 Health Care for America Survey. The survey gives you the opportunity to make your voice heard and help shape health care reform to meet the needs of working families. Take the survey here.)
According to a new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the percentage of workers with employer-provided health care dropped from more than 64 percent in 1999 to just over 59 percent in 2007.
Forty-six million Americans lacked health care coverage in 2007, when the national employment level peaked and before the current economic recession officially began. Today, that number is markedly higher as many workers who have lost their jobs have also lost their employer-provided health insurance.
The report estimates that with the economy shedding 5.1 million jobs in the past 15 months,
2.4 million workers have lost the health coverage their jobs provided since the start of the recession….The rapid loss of health coverage demonstrates the fundamental instability of health insurance protections in our current system and the need for comprehensive health reform.
The CAP report breaks down the number of workers who have lost jobs and health coverage by industry/occupation and by gender. Manufacturing workers bore the greatest burden of losses in coverage, followed by business/professionals services and construction. Looking at vanishing health care coverage by gender, the report finds:
Men are more likely to have employer-provided health insurance than their female counterparts in industries where both men and women are employed. This, in conjunction with the fact that male-dominated industries such as construction and manufacturing have fared worse in this recession than female-dominated industries, has exacerbated the impact of job loss on health coverage.
But the 2.4 million workers who may have lost coverage is only part of the picture, the report says.
The estimates, however, do not reflect the full extent of health coverage loss due to lost employment. They include only individuals who receive coverage directly from an employer, not those who receive coverage through a family member or spouse’s employer. Estimates for the rise in the number of uninsured are therefore a conservative estimate of the number affected, since it leaves out spouses and children who may have also lost coverage as a result of a spouse or parent losing their jobs.
Meanwhile, workers who continue to receive their health care coverage through their employer are likely to face even higher costs in the coming years. While higher co-payments, premiums and other expenses continue to take bigger chunks of workers’ pay, the Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog reports that a new survey finds that
nearly half of the companies polled plan to shift more health costs to employees in 2010….One-fifth of the companies said they planned to add or switch to a high-deductible or “consumer-directed” health plan with a health savings account, perhaps doubling the percentage of employers who offer such plans.
The CAP report notes that President Obama says that health care reform is not just a moral imperative but it is
a fiscal imperative….If we want to create jobs and rebuild our economy, then we must address the crushing cost of healthcare this year.
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It was a matter of time before “employer-based health care” was going to take a hit. Why in the world does Pres. Sweeney favor that over single payer? WHY? As the number of unions endorsing HR 676 continue to grow, the AFL-CIO ignores our request for an endorsement & pursuade Pres. Obama to put sinlge payer BACK on the table for true discussions. So far, only the insurance companies are involved in the discussions.
The Finance Committee (Led by Sen. Max Baucus - MT) is holding three roundtable discussions on healthcare reform in the coming weeks.
The first discussion, titled “Reforming America’s Health Care Delivery System,” on April 21st, had thirteen witnesses.
Aetna was there. Blue Cross Blue Sheild was there. But not one single-payer supporter was invited.
This is unacceptable. We need to make sure our representatives respond to the demands of the people. Together, let’s put the Senate Finance Committee to the test and demand they include single-payer experts at the upcoming Roundtable discussions on health reform.
The next two discussions are on May 5th (”Increasing access to health care coverage”) and May 14th (”Financing comprehensive health care reform”).
Please, contact committee chairman, Senator Baucus at (202) 224-2651. We need single payer on the table.
Employer-based health care plans, increasingly unaffordable to worker and employer, increasingly unavailable as millions are losing their jobs, must be considered more reasons for organized labor to abandon even demanding a “health care benefit” as a reason for having a union.
What is the logical conclusion of this crisis for the organized labor movement? To militantly demand that a national single-payer health plan be implemented this year! There are now over 50 million who can no longer afford or even be eligible for “privatized” health care.
No more procrastination! Is there no issue that the labor organizations like the AFL-CIO draw the line? The Democrats must be informed that this is an issue that must be solved now by this Democratically controlled Congress and President.
Failure to do so must have extreme consequences to the Democrats if they fail to heed the extremely dire needs of all working people, organized and unorganized, their families and children.
Give the Democrats their final notice! Watch Out! Heads will roll!!If they fail this time, the organized labor movement will end all support for the Democrats. Plans to establish a new political party in the interests of all working people will be established. Candidates for every office at the National, State and Local governments will be prepared to run on a platform “of, by, and for” the economic and social needs of the people. Their will be no turning back. Labor must now wage a POLITICAL STRUGGLE for governmental power away from Wall Street, Big Business, war-mongering corporations and corrupt gangster capitalism.
Today this is the only way organized labor can secure the needed economic necessities of working people. Simple trade unionism, increasingly powerless against globalization and economic collapse, must be replaced by massive economic AND POLITICAL struggle at every level!
Congratulations to the brave activists who today took a stand at the latest faux hearing convened by Sen. Max Baucus who pretends that everyone is invited to be at the table while deliberately excluding those who favor real reform — expanding and updating Medicare to cover everyone.
Read about today’s protest at http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/in-the-news/2009/may/doctors-single-payer-activists-arrested-make-history-at-senate-finance-roundtable.html
or
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/05/05/senator-during-health-care-protest-we-need-more-police/...
or watch the CSPAN coverage at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKP05AyfRsI&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fnews%2Egoogle%2Ecom%2Fnews%3Fpz%3D1%26ned%3Dus%26hl%3Den%26q%3Dsinlge%2Bpayer%26cf%3Dall%26as%5Fqdr%3Dh%26as%5Fdrrb%3Dq&feature=player_embedded
Read and sign these legislative petitions please and get hundreds of people to sign them and they will automatically go to Republican minority leaders Sen. McConnell and Rep. Boehner right away once you sign the petiton.
http://tinyurl.change.org/EzKoE
http://tinyurl.change.org/upFFg
http://tinyurl.change.org/SmldU
http://tinyurl.change.org/zcCYl
http://tinyurl.change.org/DppEP
Oh Christ. More whining. No action.
Folks had better get it straight. There will be no true health care reform unless we have the guts to take action to demand it! It will take more than keyboard activism to win health care justice.
HR 676 is the justice we need!
Congress is betting that we are all sheep! They think we lack the guts to take effective action!
Let’s not prove them right!
On May 30, all across America working class people will be marching in support of single-payer national health care. (Info. at Healthcare-NOW.org.) Will you be there?
This is only step one. We’ll have to do much more. Unless and until we set aside our tools and shut commerce down, Congress will not pay any attention to us.
So there it is!
Signed, 68 year old retired working stiff who is telling it like it is! “I may have retired from the job, but I will never retire from my union.”
Many people have been saying that we need health care reform since the 1980’s. We failed during the Clinton administration and unless all people band together, support HR 676, convince their friends and relatives of this, we may fail again. The USA is the only industrialized country in the world that doesn’t have health care for all from cradle to grave as a government funded plan. I believe it is one of the main reasons firms moved overseas. For profit health insurance, HMO’s and such have got us into this mess and yet the fat cats in D.C. continue to shun anyone who talks about universal single payer health care. We need to let them hear loud and clear that we need change.
On Friday, May 1st, approximately 1,200 Vermonters took off from work to rally at our Statehouse to claim the human right to healthcare.
In Vermont we are building a real movement for single payer.
On May Day we marched, we rallied, we sang, and heard from speakers. In a way that could not be ignored, we made our voices heard as we delivered our message to the governor and legislators that healthcare is a human right.
We will not be diverted from organizing for what we need by a “public plan” approach which will never get off the ground. The hundreds of billions of dollars necessary to start it up were unavailable in good fiscal times.
If by a miracle, Congress found the revenue to pay premiums for all the uninsured, plus bring Medicaid and Medicare up to market reimbursement rates, the inflationary impact would be so powerful as to swamp any efforts at cost savings.
See what we are doing on the ground:
http://workerscenter.org/node/77
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=10288723
Let’s Keep Organizing!
Traven Leyshon, President Washington-Orange-Lamoille Labor Council, AFL-CIO
As an “early retiree” from the Canco, I can certainly attest that companies have dumped insurance responsibilites. If some of the folks in Soar 11-3 (retired steelworkers in St. Louis, Missouri) did not have Medicare, they would have no insurance at all (this despite the fact that folks were promiced lifetime benefits). Note: Medicare presently is very flawed comparied to old time Canco insurance.
The current insurance given to working folks at the cancos is poor. In fact, I would have called for a strike against them if I was still working at one of the container plants.
This is a common story anymore. The fastest and most efficient way to reform healthcare in America would be enactment of HR676. Next in line to reform, total socialization of the entire medical industry from top to bottom. Some of the other “proposals” are a poor taste joke to the American public whom have demanded basic reforms in Health care.
Seeing that about 20,000 folks die from lack of preventable illness and many more die directly from the Insurance companies saying no each year; I would ask a simple question. How many Americans will die while our fearless leaders “debate” the issue and play the sycophant games in DC and state houses?
At the end of this month, Labor for Single Payer Healthcare is planning actions. Folks might wish to participate in these actions:
http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org/
The Senate Finance Committee hearing on May 6th was a sham as NOT one advocate for single payer was invited to participate!
Obviusly the insurance bosses have full control of this committee and are not going to allow for single payer to be discussed much less considered! (so much for free speech) Eight activists dared to protest the exclusion of REAL healthcare reform and were arrested for their efforts!
The time to revert to more in your face tactics is NOW! We must take the cause to the streets as was done during the civil rights movement! Surely justice in healthcare is worth it!
If you are uninsured and does not have insurance, you should check out the website http://UninsuredAmerica.blogspot.com - John Mayer, California