PEP, April 2007: Members put the HEAT on health cuts by Bush

By ALFREDO ALVARADO

More than 65 enthusiastic members from DC 37 locals attended a Health care Education Activist Team training session March 3 at union headquarters. HEAT organized the program foractivists to discuss strategy to fight the devastating health care cuts proposed in President Bush’s latest national budget.

HEAT is a collaborative initiative of the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. and the Municipal Labor Committee’s HHC Sub-Committee to develop and coordinate grassroots activism in the fight for access to affordable and quality health care.

Geraldine Dease, a Fraud Investigator and member of Social Service Employees Union Local 371, was one of the union members who decided to join the HEAT team and attend the training session.

“I was talking to a neighbor of mine, and I was shocked at how much he had to pay for prescription drugs,” said Dease, who is also president of her block association in Brooklyn. “And my older sister doesn’t have adequate coverage, so I know it’s a very pressing issue for a lot of people.”

Laray Brown, HHC’s Sr. Vice President for Intergovernmental Affairs, attended and spoke briefly on the impact of the federal and state budgets on the Corporation’s hospitals.

The HEAT activists learned that the impact of Bush’s budget proposals would be devastating to the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. The public hospital system would lose more than $550 million in federal Medicaid funds and $18 million in Medicare funds for 2008 under Bush’s plan.

A long-term campaign
Over the next five years the Bush cuts would cost HHC hospitals a total of more than $3.7 billion! Fighting these budget cuts is only part of the work of HEAT, which is a long-term campaign to educate, organize and mobilize members at HHC about the funding needs of the public hospitals, the importance of preventative care by primary care doctors to avoid excessive emergency room visits and the nation’s need for universal single-payer health coverage.

Local 420 President Carmen Charles said her local, which represents the majority of DC 37 members in HHC, “strongly supports the HEAT program, which unites us behind urgent local and national issues.”
The HEAT campaign will be rolled out borough by borough through the HHC hospitals.

At the training session, HHC member/activists were briefed by representatives of AFSCME, DC 37’s parent union, and HHC on the critical issues affecting the health care crisis in New York City and throughout the nation.

Increased activity
Sally Tyler and Brian McDonald,AFSCME representatives from Albany, noted the increased activity around the issue of health care throughout the country. More states are considering individual mandates requiring people to have health care insurance, but they are not requiring employers to pay into the costs of these benefits, said Tyler.

“Health care reform should include controlling costs, providing coverage for everyone and requiringemployers, not just employees, to pay into the system,” Tyler said at the Saturday morning session.

The following week HEAT activists blitzed the public hospital system, starting at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, where they launched an aggressive petition campaign and signed up co-workers and patients against the cuts.

“I was planning to be at the Saturday training session, but I had to work that morning,” said Lloyd Simmons, a Nurses Aide and member of Local 420, as he signed a petition. “I believe in fighting on behalf of ourselves and the poor. You can bet I’ll be at the next training,” he said.

Universal coverage
“Through HEAT, we are fighting for our own immediate needs and for the big one—universal national health care,” said DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts.

She pointed out that both AFSCME, with Local 1549 President Eddie Rodriguez playing an important role as an international vice president, and the national AFL-CIO had recently endorsed a universal national care bill.

To join the HEAT activist team, call DC 37’s Moira Dolan at 212-815-1470.