Today in Health Care
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Here’s the latest news from around the country as the battle for real health care reform continues:
* 45,000 people die every year from lack of access to health insurance. How much would it cost to cover those 45,000 every year, saving their lives? Here’s a hint: It’s less than the $263 million the health care industry has spent this year on lobbying.
* Today, the California Labor Federation begins a 24-hour vigil in Sacramento to let their elected leaders know that they demand health care reform now, including a public option to bring down costs for families. California union members also will hold events this week in Los Angeles, San Diego and Bakersfield.
A Robust Public Option Creates Competition
Stopping by “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC last night, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka discussed why the AFL-CIO supports health care reform legislation that makes sure Big Insurance doesn’t monopolize the health care field—and why the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee, which does not include a public option, must be improved as it goes through Congress.
Right now as your last guest [Wendell Potter, former Cigna executive] said, American insurance companies have a stranglehold on the health care industry. In 90 percent of the markets, they’re called highly concentrated, or there’s one or two companies that control them. As a result, profits have gone up 1,000 percent and premiums have gone up 300 percent. The only way to hold them accountable is to create competition and the only way you can create competition is with a robust public option.
Alison Stewart, who filled in for Maddow, asked Trumka:
Let’s talk about the public option. Is it a make or break issue?
His answer:
Absolutely.
Tell Your Health Care Insurer It’s Time for Real Reform
Health insurance companies have turned to scare tactics and outright lies to fight health care reform. Seems they’re not satisfied with jacking up the cost of premiums, canceling policies when people get sick and denying treatment.
In fact, you can tell the health insurance companies you’re sick of their lies and that it’s time for real health care reform.
- Click here if a Blue Cross Blue Shield company provides your health insurance.
- Click here if UnitedHealthcare provides your health insurance.
- Click here if Aetna provides your health insurance.
- Click here if Humana provides your health insurance.
- Click here if CIGNA provides your health insurance.
- Click here if a different company provides your health insurance.
- Click here if you don’t have health insurance.
Today, Florida members of the Alliance for Retired Americans rallied in front of the West Palm Beach offices of Humana and called the scare tactics and lies ”unconscionable.”
Health Care Reform Action: Rallies, a ‘Die-In’ and a Visit from the VP
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In Hartford, Conn., union and health care activists marched on the headquarters of health insurance giant Aetna. In Minnetonka, Minn., the target was the posh headquarters of UnitedHealthcare. And in Fargo, N.D., demonstrators took a list of health care reform demands to the offices of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Dakota.
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally and march of several hundred to CIGNA’s headquarters.
Meanwhile, Vice President Joe Biden today met with Alliance for Retired Americans seniors to describe how the administration’s health care plan would benefit them.
Those rallies and marches and dozens of others in cities around the country were part of a National Day of Action for health care reform and against the private health insurance companies’ multimillion-dollar campaign to block comprehensive reform that includes a quality and affordable public health insurance option.
Holt Baker: We’re Sick of Insurance Company Abuses
The new AFL-CIO leadership team’s cross-country effort to lay out a progressive vision continues in multiple states today. In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker led a rally of hundreds outside the headquarters of CIGNA, a major insurer, demanding health insurance reform that puts people first, not insurance company profits. (AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka is in New York, calling for tough new regulations on the financial industry.)
The rally in Philadelphia is part of a National Day of Action on health care, as well as a national push by the AFL-CIO’s newly elected officers to mobilize for an economy that works for everyone.
Holt Baker led a march from City Hall to CIGNA headquarters, saying the time had come to declare independence from the insurance giants who dominate the nation’s health care system.
Health Care Reform Needs Public Option—Not Band-Aid
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Today, union and health care activists around the country are raising their voices against the private health insurance companies’ mutlimillion-dollar campaign to block health care reform. In dozens of rallies and demonstrations they are saying: “Big Insurance: We’re sick of it.”
Union members are joining a march on Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association’s Portland, Ore., headquarters. In a letter to Blue Cross President Scott Serota, Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamberlain calls on the company to cease opposition to a public health insurance option and stop the use of union members’ premium payments to fund lobbying against a public option.
Union members in Oregon have spent too many years at the bargaining table knowing that they have to choose between bargaining for better wages, or maintaining their healthcare. This is unsustainable; healthcare reform with true cost controls is necessary. For union members to now see their healthcare dollars spent lobbying against the reform they support is absolutely unacceptable.
Rallies Set Across Nation to Protest Big Insurance
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Health care activists around the nation tomorrow will tell the huge private health insurance companies that are spending millions of dollars to derail health care reform:
“Big Insurance: We’re sick of it!”
In Philadelphia, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker will lead a rally and march from the steps of City Hall to CIGNA’s world headquarters to call on their executives to stop standing in the way of quality affordable health care for all.
Says Holt Baker:
Here’s the way we in labor see things—America is in a big fight over health care. The American people are on one side. Big Insurance is on the other side. Only one of us will win. We know if the insurance companies win, we all lose.
Other demonstrations are planned at the headquarters and local offices of Aetna, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint—including its subsidiary Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Check out our friends at Health Care for America Now (HCAN) to find an event near you. HCAN, the AFL-CIO, the Health Care for America Education Fund (HCAEF) and MoveOn are among the National Day of Action sponsors of events with the theme “Big Insurance: Sick of it!”
Health Care Opponents Know Which Words to Use to Derail Reform
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The U.S. House and Senate are moving to finish comprehensive health care reform legislation before adjourning for an August recess. Meanwhile, congressional Republicans and their allies in the corporate health care world—especially the private health insurance industry—are following a well-crafted, but lie-filled, propaganda script to kill health care reform.
But an insurance industry insider offers further proof why health care reform is so desperately needed—especially a plan that includes a strong public health insurance plan option and curbs to prevent the insurance industry’s abusive practices.
