Fixing the health care crisis Print E-mail

 

Hundreds of union members, seniors, and health care activists attended a rally in downtown San Francisco for single payer health care, held outside a health insurers' convention on June 19, 2008. Speakers like Hene Kelly of United Educators of San Francisco (click here for her 4 minute speech) urged support for SB 840, the California Universal Healthcare Act, and HR 676, which would establish a nationwide singlepayer health system. Each bill would eliminate the insurance corporation middleman, which wastes an average of more than one quarter of every health care dollar for administrative costs and profits.

 

Dealing with the health care crisis

Federal level
Support the public option in President Obama's health care proposal

Health Access letter of support for HR 3200:  America's Affordable Health Choices Act

State level
There are two things we can work on right now in California to address the need for affordable, universal access to health care. We can educate the public about the best long term solution, a single payer model for health care, and work to pass State Senator Mark Leno's SB 810. In the meantime, we can deliver as much coverage as possible to as many people as possible by supporting the work of the Health Access, the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform, and the California Health Care Coalition.

The Problem

Health care insurance costs are spiraling out of control. Forty seven million Americans are without health care coverage, including seven million Californians. Premium cost increases are affecting the finances of schools (health care costs an average of 14.5% of payroll in California school districts today), and snarling collective bargaining. Corporations are forcing unions out on strike over reductions in or outright elimination of health care coverage.

The CFT believes that ultimately we need a single-payer health care system, like Canada's, to solve the problems created in this country by for-profit health insurance corporations. This would put the United States in the company of every other major industrial nation in the world, each of whom spend less per capita on health care than we do, while delivering universal access.

The solution: Single Payer

The CFT in 2006 endorsed the first version of State Senator Sheila Kuehl's SB 840, "Health Care for All," which would have established a single-payer health care program in California. In an historic advance, SB 840 passed the State Legislature in late August 2006—the first time a single-payer bill has gotten that far toward law. However, Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed SB 840, proclaiming at the same time he was for universal health care, even as he refused to sign the only bill he's received that would create it (read Senator Kuehl's critique of the governor's remarks).

Senator Kuehl reintroduced the bill on February 27, 2007, and CFT reiterated its support at its convention in March. See CFT President Marty Hittelman's speech at an SB 840 support rally on May 8, 2007 (3 minute Quicktime video).  After Senator Kuehl was termed out, State Senator Mark Leno sponsored SB 810 to replace her SB 840 single payer bill.

Based on the Canadian model, single-payer leaves health care provision in a mix of public and private hands, just as in the U.S., but cuts out the wasteful health insurance industry, which takes between 25 and 30% of every health care dollar spent in the United States for administrative overhead and profit. In Canada, there are no uninsured; everyone has health care coverage. Is it a perfect system? There is no such thing. But is far superior by virtually every measure to the deteriorating system controlled by for-profit greed in the U.S.

Health care reform coalition efforts

Right now the most important thing you can do is to tell your state legislators to continue to support SB 810, and also to support the legislature's efforts to push through more modest and incremental but still significant health care reform bills. These are enumerated on the health care page of the California Labor Federation's web site. At the federal level, the CFT supports HR 676, which would create a single payer system for the country by expanding Medicare to all Americans and funding it adequately.

Whatever happens this year, the CFT and other education labor groups have joined in long term efforts with administrative and school board organizations in the Education Coalition for Health Care Reform to find a way to stabilize costs while increasing quality. The group is determined to address the systemic reasons for high cost and low quality health care, and committed to shifting from paying higher and higher prices to joint action against industry price gouging and poor quality health care. A similar effort is underway in the California Health Care Coalition, a labor-led group which is seeking to make provider services data more transparent and accessible in order to bring greater accountability to treatment and payment.

You can be a part of the ongoing effort to achieve affordable health care coverage for all. Health care should be a right, not a privilege.

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