PEP, July, August 2006: National health care now

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

As soaring health care costs in the auto industry force the United Auto Workers to agree to buyouts for thousands of working members and benefit reductions for retirees, the case for national health insurance is becoming more compelling.

In New York and nationwide, unions are trying to avoid similar predicaments by ratcheting up the fight for a single-payer plan, which would remove health care from the bargaining table and put it under the umbrella of the government.

“Health care is at the center of contract negotiations around the country,” DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts said. “It’s increasingly obvious that having government take responsibility for health care would help both employers and unions.”

Union support is growing for the United States National Health Insurance Act (H.R. 676), which would expand Medicare to cover everyone.

DC 37 joined Healthcare-NOW, a grassroots advocacy group, in a nationwide day of action on June 7 to educate the public about the need for universal, national healthinsurance. DC 37 Field Operations Director Barbara Edmonds spoke at a teach-in about H.R. 676 and the need for national health care at 1199 SEIU.

She discussed the DC 37 campaign that Executive Director Lillian Roberts kicked off early this year when she called on members to send postcards in favor of national health care to Congress. The cards will be delivered to Washington later this year, so members still have time to return the coupons below.

“We hope this will become areality in 2009,” said Edmonds, acknowledging that national health care won’t be possible without a change in the White House. Other speakers called the current U.S. health care system inadequate and inequitable.

While the United States spends more per person on health care than any other nation, 46 million people lack insurance. Up to 30 percent of premiums go for profits, administrative fees and bloated executive salaries at insurance companies, according to Physicians for a National Health Plan. Each year, 18,000 people die because they lack or have insufficient coverage.

DC 37 also co-sponsored a forum May 18, “The Labor Movement and United Action for Health Care for All,” which featured a talk by Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, co-chair of Healthcare-NOW.

More than 1,000 unions including DC 37’s parent, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, back H.R. 676.

After holding community forums attended by 70,000 over the last three years, a Congressional health care commission has found widespread support for national insurance. The union will form “Member Action Teams” to lobby for universal health care and greater funding for public hospitals.