Labor Campaign for Single-Payer  Healthcare

Healthcare Is A Right — Not A Privilege

WHEREAS in the aftermath of the Massachusetts special senatorial election, AFL-CIO President  Richard Trumka issued a statement declaring, “It’s time to organize and mobilize as never before  to make every elected or aspiring leader PROVE he or she will create the jobs we need in an  economy we need with the healthcare we need. I know we are the people who can mobilize a  massive army to force elected leaders to deliver;” and

WHEREAS despite the so-called economic recovery, the economic crisis for working people has  continued unabated, with growing unemployment and underemployment, rising home  foreclosures and evictions, and the underfunding of public education and vitally needed social  services; and

WHEREAS the government has bestowed billions of bailout dollars on the financial institutions  whose recklessness and greed created this economic crisis and who are rewarding those  responsible with obscene gigantic bonuses; and

WHEREAS the labor movement’s legislative priorities — a massive program for jobs, true  universal healthcare, and enactment of the Employee Free Choice Act — are all in great peril; and

WHEREAS while the government has no problem allocating a trillion dollars for two wars  thousands of miles away, it has not committed funds critically needed to put America back to  work, with healthcare and quality education for all; and

WHEREAS right wing, anti-labor forces, such as the Tea Bag movement, have brought hundreds  of thousands of people into the streets to advance their reactionary demands; and

WHEREAS there is a growing movement within the House of Labor to counter the right-wing  offensive against workers’ living standards with our own massive mobilization; and

WHEREAS various union bodies, including the South Bay Labor Council (CA), the Troy Area  Labor Council (NY), the San Francisco Labor Council, and the South Carolina AFL-CIO, have  adopted resolutions calling upon the AFL-CIO and Change to Win to organize a Solidarity Day III  March on Washington D.C. in the spring of 2010 to demand jobs, healthcare, housing, full funding  for public education and social services, and peace; now therefore be it

RESOLVED that the Labor Campaign for Single Payer joins with our brothers and sisters in  calling for a labor-sponsored march on Washington for jobs, peace and justice, which would have  the capability of mobilizing the kind of massive army Brother Trumka spoke of; and be it finally

RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be sent to the AFL-CIO and to Change to Win.

Adopted by the LCSP National Meeting, March 7, 2010.

Download a PDF of this resolution.

Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare

Railroad Workers United

Unity – Solidarity – Democracy: The Rank & File in Action!

Railroadworkersunited.org info@railroadworkersunited.org (206) 984-3051

PO Box 1053, Salem, IL 62881

Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign
P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA 94140

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

At our Executive Committee Conference Call on April 7th, 2009, Railroad Workers United (RWU) voted to endorse the Workers Emergency Recovery Campaign following a brief presentation by Bill Leumer. Please feel free to use our name whenever and wherever you present such listings of endorsing organizations.

RWU is proud to be at the forefront of building solidarity, unity and democracy in the labor movement. We applaud your efforts to build coalition between all working class people to rebuild our nation’s economy to focus on the needs of poor and working people, not the CEOs, the banks and the rich stock holders.
Best wishes in your endeavor and please keep us informed of your progress.

In solidarity,
Ron Kaminkow
Secretary, RWU
………………………………………………………
Co-Chairs
Jon Flanders, IAM 1145
CSX, Selkirk, NY

Ed Michael, BLET #724 UTU #979
UP, Salem, IL

High Sawyer, BLET #316
NS, Atlanta, GA

Secretary
Ron Kaminkow, BLET #51
AMTK, Reno, NV

Treasurer
Chet Whyers, UTU #979
UP, Salem, IL

International Steering Committee
Jon Barron, UTU #662
CSX, Richmond, VA

Ron Davison, UTU #194
CP, Elkhart, IN

Steve Desavouret, TCU #6608
CN, Chicago, IL.

Jim Eubanks, UTU #656 BLET #182
UP, Little Rock, AR

Jon Flanders, IAM #1145
CSX, Selkirk, NY

Ron Kaminkow, BLET #51
Amtrak, Reno, NV

Brian Lewis, UTU #239
UP, Oakland, CA

Ed Michael, BLET #724 UTU #979
UP, Salem, IL

Hugh Sawyer, BLET #316
NS, Atlanta, GA

Matt Weaver, BMWED #2624
CSX, Detroit, MI

Chet Whyers, UTU #979
UP, Salem, IL

President Obama’s call for achieving “comprehensive” health-care reform this year, and the criteria laid out by the White House for what the plan should include, reflect a large vision and laudable commitment.

Clearly, the moment for transformative change has arrived, starting with the bully pulpit in the Oval Office. What a stark difference from the dismal health-care policies of the past eight years.

Unfortunately, the majority of proposals floating around Congress would default on the ambitious aims and principles set by the administration – and almost certainly fail to contain the rising costs that put so many families in peril or to assure coverage for all.

To achieve the lasting and cost-effective reform the president seeks, we must confront the source of the present crisis – an insurance industry that has been steadily pricing people out of access to care, or bankrupting them if they attempt to use it. It’s those same insurance companies which all too routinely deny needed medical treatment, even when recommended by a physician. Not because they are malevolent, but because their principle obligation is to their shareholders, not to patients.

As if we needed any more reminders, they came in two reports in late February. The Institute of Medicine noted that family insurance premiums shot up 119 percent the past eight years, nearly four times faster than incomes. A Kaiser Family Foundation report found that 53 percent of Americans say they or a family member skipped needed care the past year because of cost.

Insurance company practices drive those skyrocketing costs, a problem that won’t be solved by more technology, electronic medical records, or any other stopgap measures some propose.

With one important exception – single-payer reform, or expanding and updating Medicare to cover everyone. That’s also the best way to achieve the admirable principles for reform laid out by the White House.

A health-care plan, they’ve said, should be universal, covering everyone; portable, not tied to your job; protect families financial health; make coverage affordable; guarantee choice of physician and health plan; promote prevention and wellness; improve patient safety and quality care; and maintain long-term fiscal sustainability.

To the administration’s credit, these should be benchmarks for any real reform. And they’re also on the right track in proposing progressive tax reform as a major financing mechanism.

However, the private insurers remain an implacable impediment to every one of these goals.

Private insurance plans aren’t universal because they exclude people based on pre-existing conditions or age or anyone else they think will be expensive to cover. They don’t guarantee choice of physician or hospital, but limit you to their network of providers.

The insurers won’t assure affordability because they are constantly raising premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and other fees to generate high revenues and profits. They can’t guarantee safety and quality because they actively discourage the delivery of care or deny treatments, diagnoses, or referrals they don’t want to pay for.

And, they will never be fiscally responsible because there is no independent oversight, decisions are made in secret in closed board rooms or CEO offices, and, their priority is profits, not care.

Single payer, however, does succeed in all eight areas. It’s not government-run care, government just pays the bills with no incentive for price gouging, and it takes control of our health away from the insurance companies, and puts it where it belongs, in the hands of patients, families, and their doctors and nurses.

Single payer also promotes national recovery, by creating 2.6 million new jobs, infusing $317 billion in new business and public revenues, and injecting $100 billion more in wages into the U.S. economy, according to a recent study by the California Nurses Association.

HR 676, the U.S. National Health Care Act by Rep. John Conyers, is the plan that best meets the grand vision painted by our president. It’s the reform with the broadest, national grass-roots constituency led by nurses, doctors, patients, and health care activists, and the surest path to achieving the yearning desire of our nation for a more humane health-care system.

Geri Jenkins is co-president of the California Nurses Association. The economic recovery study may be viewed at www.CalNurses.org.

Article Date: 05 Mar 2009 – 6:00 PST

The Obama administration’s plans to hold a “Health Care Summit” that excludes advocates of single-payer healthcare reform has drawn a sharp response from labor leaders around the country.

“President Obama has indicated that his administration is committed to the passage of a new ‘universal’ national health care program for all Americans, and he wants it done this year. For working people, and particularly the 48 million Americans curren tly without health insurance, this is welcome news. We also applaud the President’s efforts to provide immediate relief to the growing number of unemployed workers faced with the loss of their health insurance,” said Mark Dudzic, National Coordinator of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare.

“At the same time,” he continued, “we are deeply concerned by the apparent failure of the administration to include a single supporter of HR 676 among the 120 invited participants to Thursday’s Health Care Reform Summit. We are calling on our supporters to call and write the White House and demand that our voice be heard.”

HR 676, the “Expanded and Improved Medicare for All” Act, was re-introduced this year by Congressman John Conyers. It currently has 59 congressional co-sponsors. Because it eliminates the private insurance industry from profiting from people’s misfortunes and, like Medicare, establishes the federal government as the “single payer” of everyone’s medical bills, HR 676 can provide healthcare for all with no co-pays or deductibles in a fiscally prudent manner. HR 676 has the endorsement of hundreds of state and local labor federations and local unions as well as many other civic and religious organizations.

“The first step is to ensure that HR 676 has a ’seat at the table’ in the upcoming healthcare reform debates,” said South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt. “It needs to be given the same degree of attention as all other credible proposals for reform and subjected to a side-by-side ‘facts based’ analysis with those proposals.”

Leaders of the Labor Campaign for Single Payer are urging President Obama to consider alternatives which, like Medicare, would not rely on private, for-profit insurance companies to ration health care to the American people. “Proposals which funnel our precious healthcare dollars into the pockets of the for-profit insurance industry and other special interests will do nothing to contain and control costs or improve the quality of care,” said Fernando Gapasin, President of the West Central Oregon Central Labor Council.

Labor leaders from Massachusetts are particularly concerned that their state’s law requiring all individuals to purchase private health insurance is being touted as a model for the nation. “Last month 40 of my fellow union leaders wrote to President Obama to urge him to reject a Massachusetts-style plan that would leave private insurance companies at the center of the system through an individual mandate and expensive public subsidies supported by taxes for plans that still don’t provide enough coverage. The Massachusetts plan is widely recognized as unsustainable and now that we are facing an economic crisis, it is even more problematic.” said Peter Knowlton, president of the Northeast Region of the United Electrical Workers Union (UE).
“If anyone should be excluded from this summit,” said Ray Stever, New Jersey State Industrial Union Council President, “it should be the representatives of the health insurance industry. These are the very people who caused the crisis in the first place. They will move heaven and earth to continue to deny Americans the healthcare justice that citizens of all other industrialized countries enjoy.”

The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare joins other single payer advocates and organizations who are demanding that their views be represented in the growing debate over health care reform. These include the Leadership Conference for Guaranteed Healthcare, Healthcare-NOW, the All Unions Committee for Single Payer, the Physicians for a National Health Program and the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee whose Co-president, Geri Jenkins, RN, recently warned, “Any reform premised on expanding the insurance-based system will likely fail, frustrate the public desire for a real solution to our healthcare crisis, and undermine the political capital the administration has earned for reform.”
“That is why it is so important to speak up at this moment,” said Clyde Rivers of the California School Employees Association. “The stakes are too high to allow special interests to hijack a discussion whose outcome will so importantly affect the lives and livelihoods of the American people. We call on President Obama and the leaders of both houses of Congress to give HR 676 the fair and open hearing that it deserves,”

The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare was formed at a January 10th meeting in St. Louis, Missouri attended by over 150 representatives from labor organizations in 31 states that have endorsed HR 676. We believe that the struggle for universal, single-payer health care needs labor’s dynamic grassroots involvement.

http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org
California Nurses Association

The national kick-off meeting was convened by Labor for Single-Payer Healthcare, a campaign spearheaded by scores of trade union organizations. The national single-payer bill, HR 676 – expected to be reintroduced in Congress later this month – has been endorsed by 39 state AFL-CIO federations, 100 Central Labor Councils, and more than 400 local unions. The bill has 92 co-sponsors in Congress, more than any other health care reform bill.

In 2007, the national AFL-CIO Executive Council also adopted a resolution in support of the Medicare for All approach.

Speakers at the conference included three members of the national AFL-CIO Executive Council, three AFL-CIO state federation presidents, three Central Labor Council presidents along with many other major union leaders. A list of conference speakers is at the end of this news release.

Over the course of two days, delegates vigorously discussed strategies to promote single payer reform while also developing the new campaign’s mission statement, governance structure and a grassroots action plan.

“Poll after poll shows that the public supports a Medicare for All approach, yet a lot of policy makers think it is politically unrealistic,” said United Electrical Workers Regional President Carl Rosen, a leader of the recent occupation by workers at Republic Windows and Door in Chicago. “However our economic future depends on making the right policy choices on health care – and that’s single payer.”

“Our members have been active promoting real health care reform in nearly every municipality in California. I am excited about the Labor Campaign’s potential to expand this work across the rest of America,” said Clyde Rivers, a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and past president of the California School Employees Association.

“President-elect Obama has invited Americans to join a national dialogue on how to solve our national healthcare crisis. Labor and grassroots activists around the country are responding with a clear and emphatic message – a single-payer plan such as HR 676 is the only way to protect American families from skyrocketing medical costs and the disgraceful denials of care so common in the current system,” said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

“In virtually every contract negotiation, employers are seeking to shift the cost of healthcare to workers, resulting in contentious bargaining and many strikes. For the vast majority of workers without a union, the situation is even more desperate. A publicly financed, national healthcare plan similar to our Medicare system that could efficiently cover all Americans is the only solution that will control costs, increase access and improve the quality of care,” said Jeff Crosby, president of the North Shore Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

“Our campaign will promote grassroots labor support for a Medicare for All solution to the healthcare crisis. We will educate and mobilize broad membership support for healthcare reforms that would take basic healthcare benefits ‘off the table’ and allow our unions to focus on pay, working conditions, and other important benefits in collective bargaining,” said Nancy Wohlforth, a vice president of the California Federation of Labor and a leader of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU).

Speakers at the conference included:

• Missouri AFL-CIO President Hugh McVay
• St. Louis Central Labor Council President Bob Soutier
• Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Vice President Lew Moye
• Washington DC Central Labor Council President Jos Williams
• California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro
• California School Employees Association Past President Clyde Rivers
• Wisconsin State AFL-CIO President Dave Newby
• North Shore Labor Council (Massachusetts) President Jeff Crosby
• South Carolina AFL-CIO President Donna Dewitt
• United Electrical Workers Regional President Carl Rosen
• Office Professional Employees International Union Secretary-Treasurer Nancy Wohlforth
• National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees 1199C, AFSCME President Henry Nicholas

Conference speakers are available for interviews about the single payer approach to healthcare reform and the new labor campaign to win it. For more information, go to www.laborforsinglepayer.org.

by Rose Ann Demoro The Progressive: Dec 12, 2008

Barack Obama needs to make good on his campaign pledge to reform health care. It is not enough to throw the issue off to former Senator Tom Daschle, Obama’s choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services.

Daschle says he wants to hear from us, the American people, on this issue. So we should oblige him.

Obama and Daschle have a choice: Rely on a private insurance-based plan that does little to mitigate the escalating health care crisis, or solve the problem once and for all and adopt universal, single-payer health care.

Many in Congress, the media, conservative think tanks and some advocacy groups – led by the Service Employees International Union and its business allies – are stumping for piecemeal changes.

Such a path would perpetuate the crisis and deal a cruel blow to the hopes of Americans for real reform. Those in Congress and liberal policy organizations who are embracing caution or promoting more insurance, not more care, are playing a risky game. It could jeopardize the health security of tens of millions of Americans and, in the process, fatally erode public support for the Obama administration.

Hardly a day passes without fresh signs of the health-care implosion.

Just days after the election, the New York Times reported a sharp increase in cost-shifting in employer-paid health plans, with more employers pushing high deductible plans that typically cost workers thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket payments.

Similarly, the Wall Street Journal reported a huge spike in health care premiums for small businesses, which prompted many to raise deductibles or cut coverage.

The consequences are chillingly apparent. In October, the Washington Post cited a study that found one-fourth of Americans are skipping doctors’ visits, and 10 percent could not take their child to the doctor because of cost.

That same month, USA Today reported that one in eight patients with advanced cancer turn down recommended treatment because of the bills.

America is falling embarrassingly behind.

A study by the Commonwealth Fund in November compared adults with chronic conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes, or heart disease, in seven major industrialized countries. A stunning 54 percent of the American respondents said they were likely to go without recommended care, compared to just 7 percent of chronically ill patients in the Netherlands. Over 40 percent of the Americans spent more than $1,000 on medical bills, compared to just 4 percent of British and 5 percent of French patients.

If we adopted a universal, single-payer system like these European countries, or if we simply expanded Medicare to all Americans, we would rectify this problem.

The need is urgent. Today 46 million Americans are without health care.

Millions more are at risk of losing it during this recession. And huge numbers of Americans with insurance can’t afford the cost hikes.

At some point, our government must stop subsidizing these private companies and start investing in the American people.

The time to do so is now.

The best way to get it done is to guarantee all Americans health care in a single-payer system.

Tell Obama and Daschle to support improved Medicare for all.

———-

Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the 85,000-member California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee. She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.