AFL-CIO STRESSES UNITY IN HEALTH CARE DRIVE,
SAYS UNIVERSAL PLAN MUST INCLUDE GOVT.-RUN OPTION

The AFL-CIO is stressing unity among workers, their allies, community groups and even some sympathetic businesses in its massive election-year drive for universal, affordable national health care to be enacted next year, federation President John J. Sweeney and other officials say.

The unity would be around key principles for health care reform, not any one particular plan. The principles include universal coverage, a system where all businesses, government and workers pay shares, the right to choose one’s own doctor, and cost controls. And one key element of any plan must be a government-run option, like Medicare is now, to help ensure coverage for those whose employers would not or could not provide it--and to help keep costs below those what private insurers charge.

“Health care costs are killing working people, and they’re killing corporations as well,” Sweeney said.

Sweeney, federation Executive Vice President Arlene Holt-Baker and health care mobilization campaign Director Heather Booth outlined the principles of the federation’s drive, as well as some of its operating details, in a March 25 conference call to more than 400 health care activists nationwide.

The evening conference call occurred the same day the federation released the results of its health care survey, which drew 26,419 responses--and 7,489 stories of the damage rising health care costs do to workers and their families.

More than half of survey respondents were union members and an overwhelming majority have health insurance through their employers, Holt-Baker noted. Many are also college graduates.

But almost all--95%--feared losing coverage in the future. And 95% said the health care system needs not just a fix but to be fundamentally rebuilt. Similar high majorities were hurt by the cost of prescription drugs and one-third said they skipped doctors’ appointments or medications because they couldn’t afford them, even with health insurance coverage. Other figures from the survey are similarly dire.

“These are the people you would expect to have positive experiences with America's health care system, the lucky ones--except they're not," Sweeney said. “They think health care is one of today's most important issues, and they are ready to vote about it.” The complete survey is at www.healthcaresurvey.aflcio.org.

The federation will shape its campaign around seven general principles, Booth reiterated: Universal coverage, “building on what’s best in the current system,” cost controls, high-quality care, preventive care, the right to choose one’s own doctor, and the federal government’s dual role as both a watchdog and “as provider of an alternative” system.

And costs of the system must be spread around, with employers and government paying the lion’s share while workers would pay what they could afford, Sweeney said.

“There are many alternative ways to get there,” Booth said of the national system labor envisions. “So we’re focusing our campaign to focus on the politicians” at all levels to push them to commit to such a national health care system, she added.

In response to e-mailed questions, Booth said one way could be government-run single-payer universal health care, pushed by veteran Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) as HR 676. She neither ruled that, nor anything else, out or in.

“Conyers’ bill is in line with our core principles, and a lot of proposals are,” she said. And she quoted Conyers in a recent luncheon discussion of HR 676 at the AFL-CIO as saying the first priority was to elect a president and a Congress this year committed to health care reform--and then hash out the details next year.

Sweeney also said some businesses are beginning to change their minds about the need for health care overhaul. He said he recently spoke at a conference of the Fortune 500 in Florida and vice-presidents of several large firms, including IBM, Aetna, General Electric and Bristol-Myers-Squibb, came up to him afterwards to say the U.S. needs drastic health care reform for its businesses to stay competitive.

“Their own self-interest will move them in the right direction,” Holt-Baker said of the business community.

Sweeney pointed out that any reform must cover all businesses, as one of the leaders pointed out it costs an average health insurance policyholder $1,000 a year in premiums--premiums that shrink workers’ paychecks--to cover the uninsured. That includes covering workers and families whose firms make coverage hard or impossible, such as Wal-Mart.

Details so far of the AFL-CIO’s health care drive include, but are not limited to:

• A federation demand that local Central Labor Councils and local unions make health care the top topic of their April meetings, using fact sheets and other data they have received or will receive from the federation. So far, 300-plus CLCs have agreed.
• Labor-to-neighbor walks on health care, with distribution of educational materials on the issue and an AFL-CIO analysis--including analysis of the presidential candidates’ stands. Some 112 walks are scheduled as of now.
• An intensive examination of candidate records on health care and a federation-wide effort, enlisting its Working America affiliate and its 3 million retiree members to force political candidates at all levels to commit to comprehensive health care reform under the principles the federation laid out.

Booth said the federation is already analyzing the health care plans offered by the three remaining presidential hopefuls, Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.). McCain has clinched the GOP nomination.

Obama and Clinton differ on details, she added, but the big gap is between their plans and McCain’s. While the two Democrats offer variations on universal coverage, with a government-run component, the Arizonan offers a continuation of the “failed” health care policies of GOP President George W. Bush, Booth said

“We didn’t come at this from a partisan point of view,” she added. “But McCain would tax individuals’ health care benefits, which would only drive many more people out of coverage” beyond the 47 million uninsured and millions more underinsured.

“His health care tax credit” for individuals “is too little,” Booth added.

Sweeney, Holt-Baker and Booth were particularly insistent that the health care campaign continue not just through the Nov. 4 election, but beyond. That’s because vested interests--Booth specifically named the health insurers and drug companies--will pump millions of dollars into their own drive to stop universal coverage and care.

Responding to an e-mailed question about how to prevent the health care issue from being dominated by those special interests, she added the AFL-CIO’s answer is mass mobilization around universal health care, holding politicians accountable on it not just during the campaign but afterwards--and making clear there would be consequences at the polls for candidates who do not back universal, affordable care.

“It’s going to take a huge movement to bring about change, of unions and our members, through the election and beyond,” Sweeney added. “We’ll give the results of our survey to candidates” at every level of elected office, from president on down to city councils, he said. “That’s because it’ll take involvement of elected officials at every level to get real health care reform.”

Survey data includes state numbers for Illinois, Indiana, California, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and others.