Public Employee Press

Labor leads the fight for
Health Care Reform Now!

DC 37 presses for change in Washington and at City Hall

"These Republicans are working for the insurance industry, not the American people. They are putting profits ahead of people. Congress has to make real reform happen — reform that guarantees quality, affordable health care for all."
—AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

As lawmakers return to Washington this month, health care reform will top the agenda. America’s Affordable Health Choices Act, HR 3200, will be up for a House vote, and another proposal is expected in the Senate.

If President Barack Obama achieves his prime legislative goal — enacting a comprehensive plan this year — all Americans will gain security, economic relief and quality health care, and tens of millions of the uninsured people will finally get medical coverage.

This momentous battle will decide who wins, working families or the insurance giants that profit by denying care to millions.

Obama has made the reform process open and inclusive as he works with Congress, doctors, hospitals, businesses and unions.

Public plan would lower costs

DC 37 and its parent union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, are on the front lines supporting the president. Together with a coalition involving grassroots advocacy groups and progressive members of Congress, unions are fighting to enact HR 3200 without taxes on workers’ benefits and with the government-run public option to keep insurance companies honest and costs down. An income tax surcharge on the richest 1 percent of Americans would help fund the plan.

About 10,000 DC 37 and AFSCME members rallied with the Health Care for America Now! coalition at the Capitol June 25 to press Congress for universal national health care.

DC 37 Executive Director Lillian Roberts spoke out for reform on July 21 at a spirited town hall meeting with radio hosts Errol Lewis, Ed Schultz and Alan Colmes that was broadcast on WWRL 1600 AM. The audience of unionists, activists and talk radio fans overwhelmingly supported Obama’s plan.In July, AFSCME kicked off an e-mail campaign asking tens of thousands of activists to urge their Congressional representatives to vote for HR 3200, launched the nationwide “Highway to Health Care” bus tour and the www.Highway2HealthCare.org Web site, and began airing television ads in key battleground states.

City Hall rally

“Retaining the health care status quo is not an option. We must move forward with fundamental health care reform,” Roberts told a City Hall rally July 28. Associate Director Oliver Gray joined grassroots activists Aug. 21 at a Chelsea health center as they pressed Obama and Congressional leaders to stick with the government-run public option, which would keep costs down by reducing executive pay and eliminating the excessive profits of the private insurers.

Watching out for the needs of New York City public hospitals, where 18,000 DC 37 members care for a population that includes many of the uninsured, Roberts urged AFSCME and Gov. David Paterson to defend the city’s $106 billion in so-called disproportionate share funds from a Senate proposal to use the “dish” money to fund health care reform.

Although Americans spent $2.2 trillion last year on health care — twice as much as other developed nations — infant mortality, cancer, diabetes and heart disease all rose. Obama says we can do better. His plan would offer millions of Americans better medical treatment, stress preventive care, guarantee choice of doctors and health plans, and eliminate abuses by insurance companies (see box). It would also reduce bankruptcy among families saddled with outrageous medical bills and cut health care costs for government and for business, which must often compete against foreign companies with lower health care costs.

What is a blue dog?

But reform is under attack from Republicans who call Obama’s plan “socialist” as they seek to protect insurance companies that rack up high profits for minimal services. Allied with the Republicans in stalling HR 3200 have been the “Blue Dog” Democrats, a group of generally pro-business Congress members whose largest single source of contributions is the health insurance industry. Five New York Representatives are Blue Dogs, including Nita Lowey (District 18, Westchester and Rockland counties) and Mike McMahon (District 13, Staten Island)

Republicans, Blue Dogs and insurance industry lobbyists have used the delay in Congress to launch an all-out attack on the reform plan. Right-wingers have disrupted town hall meetings and circulated false claims — such as that “death panels” will decide who gets treatment — to stoke fear among Americans who need reform the most, aging baby boomers and seniors in Medicare, which is an
efficient government-run health care plan.

Opponents say that in the reform plan government will come between patients and doctors, but the real issue is whether insurance companies will stay between patients and doctors, deciding what, if any, medical treatment people can get and often denying coverage altogether based on pre-existing medical conditions.

“While the enemies of reform spread their lies, Americans want real health care reform — including the public option, which 72 percent support,” said Lillian Roberts. AFSCME President Gerald W. McEntee said working people are “tired of the insurance industry putting their profits ahead of the health and well-being of the middle class.”