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Delivering Letters—and a Message to Congress on Health Care
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This week, union leaders and activists visited more than 100 members of Congress to deliver thousands of letters from union members with a simple message: Pass real health care reform now-without a new tax on workers’ benefits.
Mark Whetstone and Gloria Kortum, two AFGE members, flew in from Nebraska on Wednesday to ask Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) to support real health care reform. Kortum and Whetstone say they’re concerned about the effects of the health care crisis on families and small businesses in Nebraska—and they hope that reform will be fairly financed, not by taxing benefits. Whetstone said:
One of the prime concerns for federal employees is the tax in the bill. It will have ramifications well into the future. We want to make sure Sen. Nelson knows we’re concerned about legislation that contains an excise tax. We know he’s a pivotal vote and he needs to hear from his constituents.
Kortum and Whetstone were excited union members and Working America members sent their handwritten letters to Congress. They delivered these letters to Sen. Nelson during their meeting. Gaeylnn Dooley, the Nebraska state director for Working America, says these letters show deep concerns about the health care system:
We talk to people every single night about the health care crisis. What we experience is that we’re fighting for health care reform in one of the states that needs the help the most. People here are really struggling, and they’re coming out to ask Nebraska senators to listen to them, not big insurance companies.
Ken Mass, president of the Nebraska State AFL-CIO, calls on Nelson to support real health care reform in the Omaha World-Herald.
Here’s more news from the fight for health care reform:
- Check out this great video from the Center for American Progress on why we need health care reform.
- A new study from the Center for Economic and Policy Research suggests that the broken health care system is the key factor behind our nation’s public debt.
- The Alliance for Retired Americans is delivering members of Congress holiday cards for health care reform.
- In case you were wondering: Yes, a public health insurance option is still very popular—more popular than the reform bill in general. This isn’t rocket science, senators!
- And, finally, your absurdity of the day: Fox News loudmouth Glenn Beck has a “plan” for health care: abolishing Medicare.
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4 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
It will not be a victory for workers if all tyou can accomplish is getting Congress NOT to tax their benefits.
As it stands now, most of us with employment based health care are
generously subsidizing the insurance industry with what our employers are paying for our health care. This bloated cost could be real wages in our pockets, but it won’t really change until we have a Medicare for All, single-payer system of health care delivery.
Health insurance does not guarantee health care either.
Sea Star RN
http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/2009/12/13/maine_sp/
Maine AFL-CIO Calls for Labor Summit to Win Single Payer
by Matt Schlobohm and Charlie Urquhart
On Friday October 23, 2009 the delegates at the Maine AFL-CIO’s 27th Biennial Convention unanimously passed a resolution calling on the AFL-CIO to convene, after the current healthcare reform process in Congress concludes, a democratic strategic planning process to develop a long term strategy to win Single Payer national health insurance.
The resolution was enthusiastically supported by the delegates and is rooted in the belief that to win a Medicare for all single payer system the labor movement needs to pursue a different strategy – one that is rooted in building a broadbased social movement, taking a long term approach to this fight, organizing around basic principles and pursuing relentless rank & file education and mobilization.
Maine AFL-CIO Vice President & IBEW 567 Training Director Don Berry laid out the Federation’s position, “Most union leaders are clear that we need a single payer system to solve the healthcare crisis. Yet as a labor movement our strategy has not been clearly, solidly and unambiguously behind single payer. We think it is time for us to commit to and stick with a long term strategy to win Medicare for All. That’s the only thing that’s going to get us out of the healthcare crisis we face at the bargaining table and in society at large and its high time we put our full force behind it.”
Building on the momentum of the National AFL-CIO’s historic and unanimous passage of Resolution 34 that called for the creation of a Medicare for All, single payer social insurance program, the Maine AFL-CIO saw this resolution as an important step to making that resolution real and pursuing some important next steps.
In this spirit the Maine AFL-CIO unanimously passed the following resolution:
RESOLUTION # 5 Single Payer Healthcare Resolution
Whereas the National AFL-CIO unanimously passed Resolution 34 strongly endorsing a Medicare for All single payer health care system; Whereas 39 State AFL-CIO Federations, 134 Central Labor Councils, and 572 different labor organizations have endorsed HR 676;
Whereas as a State Federation we strongly believe that a Medicare for all national health insurance system with single payer financing is the solution that is required to solve the healthcare crisis union members face at the bargaining table and that we face collectively as a society;
Whereas regardless of how the current healthcare reform effort concludes in Congress it will not come close to solving the current healthcare crisis; Whereas historically, significant structural changes in this country have occurred when progressive forces have built powerful social movements that organize around a long term strategy that involves relentless rank & file education, organizing around basic fundamental principles, having rank & file leaders lead the movement and committing to a long term approach to the issue;
Whereas we strongly believe that to win a single payer national health insurance system the labor movement needs to pursue that kind of strategy and work to build a broad based working class social movement and; Whereas we believe that had we collectively pursued such a strategy after the last healthcare policy failure in Congress in the mid 1990s – by staking out a strong single payer position, educating our membership as deeply as possible, pushing for political support of single payer legislation and sticking with that approach for the last fifteen years – we would be in a much stronger position today to win meaningful healthcare reform;
Therefore, we call on the National AFL-CIO to convene, after the current healthcare reform process in Congress concludes, a democratic strategic planning process to develop a long term strategy to win Single Payer national health insurance. We think this process should: 1. Start with a Single Payer labor movement summit
2. Involve, among others, Central Labor Councils, State Federations and rank & file single payer union activists in the planning process
3. Do an assessment of how we’ve historically built powerful social movements in this country and put our best thinking forward about what would need to be done today to build a social movement powerful enough to win single payer
4. Include a commitment of resources from the AFL-CIO of no less than the resources that have been devoted to the current health care reform effort
5. Include a commitment from the AFL-CIO to support state’s efforts to pass single payer legislation
Matt Schlobohm is Public Policy & Poltical Mobilization Director for Maine AFL-CIO; Charlie Urquhart is Organizer for the Maine Labor Group on Health
The sad thing is the AFL-CIO membership passed TWO unanimous resolutions in favor of Single Payer at its Pittsburgh convention,
but the leadership went back to throwing its support behind the Obama/Pelosi/DNC ‘public option’.
So much for representation.
Sea Star RN
I paid for my own health care until I became a senior. I very rarely needed any doctor’s care as a younger person.. Then I no longer was employed so I depend on Medicare. The Health Care bill is taking $500 Billion dollars from Medicare. I don’t understand.