> You can critique union leaders all you want for their lack of a
> vision of change in health care, but I have no doubt that most of
> them would love to be rid of this headache.
John Sweeney is a member of the Board of the National Coalition on Health Care: <http://www.nchc.org/members/bios/Sweeny_John.shtml>.
Take a look at the organizational members, too: <http://www.nchc.org/members/members.shtml>. Among them are not only AFL-CIO, individual unions like CWA, AARP, pension funds, etc. but also corporations, _even Kaiser Permanente <http:// www.kaiserpermanente.org/> and United Health Group_ <http:// www.unitedhealthcare.com/>.
Some of the top officials of organized labor are probably ideologically committed to the American system of welfare capitalism with a big role for insurance companies, so they don't argue for single-payer, though they argue for "universal coverage" (<http:// www.nchc.org/about/> which, unlike single-payer, doesn't eliminate the role of insurance companies). Ideological commitment is worse than mere corruption that Robert Fitch alleges.
The last time when a big debate on health care took place at the highest level of organized labor, however, labor leaders were said to be "split eight-eight":
<blockquote>According to [Marie] Gottschalk, in 1991 AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland and SEIU President John J. Sweeney led the internal campaign to keep the AFL-CIO from endorsing single-payer. The issue came to a head that year because premium inflation had hit double digits for several years in a row, and because the single- payer movement had succeeded in introducing single-payer legislation in several state legislatures and the House of Representatives. Single-payer advocates, including unions such as AFSCME and UAW, believed that labor's endorsement would add significantly to single- payer's credibility with politicians and the media. But the federation's health policy committee split eight-eight on a motion to endorse single-payer.
<http://www.labornotes.org/archives/2004/08/articles/e.html></ blockquote>
So there is hope of winning the rest over, as Jerry Gordon says here: <http://www.washingtonfreepress.org/61/AFLCIOUniversalHealth.htm >. But that's faint hope, though. *Time* is the key here. If AFL-CiO and/or CTW (as well as a majority of their member unions) come around to single-payer only after they lose much of their clout through the further diminution of industrial leverage and decline of union density, it will be *too late*.
<blockquote>Note to Health Care Reform Activists: Public Employee Health Benefits to Evaporate
by Andy Coates
According to two recent articles, one in the New York Times and one in the Wall Street Journal, the federal Governmental Accounting Standards Board has begun to require municipalities -- states, counties, cities -- to account for how much it will cost them to provide all the health care promised to present and retired public employees. This process, to be completed over the next 3 years, has already started in states like Alaska, Delaware, and Maryland and cities like Duluth, Minnesota and Arlington, Texas.
In response, public employers have begun slashing the benefits offered to new hires. Retirees' and current employees' health benefits will be next. A union struggle will be enjoined, as public employee unions face an ever more defensive struggle to hold on to health benefits.
As of 2006, new hires in Arlington, Texas will have no retirement health benefits. Alaska, facing a health care cost deficit of $5.7 billion, pushed new employees into high deductible/ HSA (Health Savings Account) schemes (after some heavy lobbying from the White House). Thankfully, the state constitution protected the benefits of current state workers. In Michigan, legislation is being prepared that will shift health care costs onto the retirees, period.
FULL TEXT: <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/coates251205.html></blockquote>
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>