The 2,000 member Local 83761, IUE-CWA, in Louisville, Kentucky, has endorsed HR 676, the national single payer legislation, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, introduced into the House of Representatives by Democratic Congressman John Conyers of Michigan.

Local 83761 members make General Electric refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, and other major appliances. The local is growing and expects to add another 460 members by the end of February.

Steven Wimsatt, Chairman of the Local’s COPE committee and State Political and Legislative Director of the Kentucky IUE-CWA, introduced the resolution to endorse HR 676.

“Health care is important to our members and one of the biggest benefits that you can get from a company,” said Wimsatt, “but it’s getting harder and harder to negotiate a contract with health care in it.”

Explaining why the local took this step, Wimsatt said, “So, very simply, if we had a national health care plan that all members could be in, then we wouldn’t have to be in a confrontational position over health care with GE during the contract negotiations.”

Wimsatt added, “There is an excise tax that will come in a few years under the health reform that passed that will make it almost impossible to afford a plan, and it would be a penalty for having a good health care plan. Because of this it’s even more important that we win single payer health care.”

The endorsement of HR 676 was passed unanimously at the December Executive Board and membership meetings.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 74 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 587 union organizations including 139 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 40 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV & MA).

I am chairperson of the Bergen County Central Trades & Labor Council Retirees. We set out to target towns in which we live to seek an endorsement for HR 676. One member of our committee Denise Powlis-Lightly and her father Austen Powlis live in Teaneck and helped to get the relevant figures from the town budget. Those figures were the towns health care costs for its employees and the salaries of the employees. We then calculated the savings Teaneck would realize under HR 676. The figure came in at about $4.6 million.

Denise and I met with a member of the council, Lizette Parker, who we learned would most probably be amenable to endorsing it herself and bringing it to the rest of the mayor and council. We gave her a packet of what we thought was relevant information and six other packets to present to the rest of the governing body for further discussion.

The result was this resolution.

70 state and local governments have already passed resolutions supporting HR 676. Help add yours to the list! Go here to learn more or participate in our Win-Win Campaign targeting local government entities – cities, towns, counties, school boards – in an effort to get them to endorse HR 676. Our hook is big money savings in a time of fiscal crisis for governments.

The 3,000 delegates who attended the IBEW convention called upon “…our international officers (to) do everything in their power and authority to work with other groups and elected officials to build support and action for universal single payer health insurance…”

The IBEW represents over 725,000 members in the United States and Canada and is one of the largest building trades unions affiliated with the AFL-CIO. The September 2011 convention was held in Vancouver, Canada.

Ed Hill, IBEW International Union President who presided at the convention, said afterwards:

“The IBEW believes that single-payer health insurance in the United States is a worthy long-term goal. While a national single-payer system currently has little chance of becoming a reality in the near future, the 38th IBEW International Convention wanted to go on record in support of the concept in order to help nudge the debate forward and keep the issue in front of elected officials.”

Resolution 60 on single payer, which was submitted by IBEW Local 23 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and passed by the convention, cites the fact that the United States is spending 16 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on health care but:

“…(T)he battle with employers is on-going concerning the increases in health care costs; battles which for the most part we are losing in the form of costs being passed on to our members;”

Resolution 60 states that, “…(R)etirees who have previously sacrificed to obtain health care benefits are now being stripped of those benefits;” and says that “a universal single payer health care plan would reduce wasteful costs to all Americans while continuing to provide excellent health care coverage.”

Resolution 60 also calls for sending a copy of the resolution “…to all elected officials in the United States House and Senate and to all elected state legislators.”

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 70 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 585 union organizations in 49 states including 138 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO,
MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, go to unionsforsinglepayer.org

In this latest newsletter we highlight four important articles/issues from the past few weeks:

Demand Pres. Obama Protect Medicare
Thank you to everyone who participated in our email campaign to stop Medicare from being privatized and Medicaid funds from being cut. Over 3,100 people took action so far, but we need a lot more support to make an impact. If you haven’t sent a letter to Congress and the President, please do so here.

Flyer Summarizes Ryan’s Plan to End Medicare, Medicaid
With the help of some single-payer activists in New York City, we created an educational handout explaining how House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s 2012 budget proposal seeks to eliminate Medicare and gut Medicaid. You can download a copy of the handout here (.pdf).

Nobody Wants to Cut Medicare – Not Even the Tea Party
Seventy percent of those who identified themselves as supporters of the fiscally conservative movement in a new McClatchy-Marist poll oppose cuts to Medicaid and Medicare to solve the country’s deficit woes.

Quarter-Million Dead and Not Counting
Over the past four years since the making of SiCKO, Michael Moore’s 2007 documentary, an estimated 45,000 people each and every year have died simply because they lacked access to healthcare. The US healthcare dead are dead not because the care wasn’t available – it just wasn’t available to them.

By Kay Tillow for OtherWorlds.org –

More than a year after President Barack Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law, our nation’s health care delivery and coverage remain the disgrace of the industrialized world. There are more than 50 million uninsured Americans. Even if the health care overhaul works as planned, 23 million Americans will still lack health insurance in 2019.

The new norm is underinsurance. About 40 percent of us go without needed care because we can’t afford it. The health care law won’t change that, even once it’s completely phased in. Our plague of medical bankruptcies will continue too.

For unions, bargaining for health care is getting tougher as employers demand cuts and shift more costs to workers. Negotiations over better health coverage will become almost impossible when the excise tax on health benefits begins in 2018.

Many who saw the reform bill as “the best we could get” are disappointed that support for it hasn’t grown. The truth is that most people agree on the reform law. They love the parts that block insurance companies from denying coverage and care. They hate the parts that give away our tax dollars to insurance companies. They hate the mandate that will force everyone to buy insurance from the very companies whose profit motive is the source of most of our health care system’s problems. They hate the escalating costs of insurance and care.

Only a single payer system can bring us the parts we love and do away with the parts we hate. It would essentially expand Medicare coverage to all Americans, providing 100 percent guaranteed coverage regardless of employment status or pre-existing conditions. That may sound expensive, but it’s not. The “potential savings on paperwork, more than $400 billion per year, are enough to provide comprehensive coverage to everyone without paying any more than we already do,” according to Physicians for a National Health Program.

Every pro-patient measure in the law brings an ugly backlash from insurance companies, because they want to remain in the driver’s seat. For example, the act says children who have been sick can’t be denied coverage. Insurers have responded by refusing to sell child-only policies. The act says there must be minimal standards of coverage. Yet hundreds of companies have obtained waivers after threatening to drop coverage altogether.

The legislation is designed to expand Medicaid as the main way for states to cover more people. It prohibits states from dumping people currently covered. Yet with state budgets in crisis, Medicaid is under the knife. Arizona plans on dumping 250,000. Many states propose increasing patient co-pays, thus damaging the ability of patients to find doctors and fatally undermining rural hospitals.

Some assert that healthcare reform just isn’t working. Yet. Give it 10 years, and all will be fixed.

But our new health law is anchored on the private insurance industry–and that’s its fatal flaw. The insurers inflict enormous and unnecessary administrative costs on our system. This amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars every year and condemns us to spend about double, per capita, what other nations spend on health care.

Health care advocates must move beyond the health care reform law. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) has reintroduced H.R. 676, the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act, which would bring all medically necessary care to everyone while assuring choice of physician. The bill is based on sound single-payer policy and progressive public funding.

If every other industrialized nation can make health care a human right, we can do it too. Our challenge is to pass effective legislation despite the powerful private health insurance companies and other corporations whose influence often trumps democracy.

First, we must have a powerful movement. We can’t build it around a shriveled dream. Only single payer, with its bolder promise of social justice, can inspire that movement.

Kay Tillow is the coordinator of the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care, which builds union support for H.R. 676. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

With this endorsement all eight of Kentucky’s CLC’s have endorsed HR 676.

Betty Robertson had much more to say: “We feel that Americans must fight for better health coverage. We shouldn’t have to do without the necessities of life in order to pay for health coverage or face other hardships to pay for coverage. Insurance companies and HMOs continue to decrease quality and raise prices and avoid covering those whose needs are the greatest.”

The Kentucky AFL-CIO, the first state federation to endorse HR 676, took that action in 2005.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 41 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 583 union organizations in 49 states including 138 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, go to unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org.

By Sue Saltmarsh for Positively Aware –

As a peer-led agency, the Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN) has always been staffed by many HIV-positive people, as well as others who have diabetes, heart problems, sleep disorders, cancer, and a variety of other ills that make all of us concerned about our health insurance and our access to the care we need. TPAN has always provided the best insurance possible, and I don’t think any of us are unaware or ungrateful for the efforts put forth to get the most from the tens of thousands of dollars of our annual budget that go to health insurance.

A week after the first wave of “reform” laws were enacted in September, TPAN’s insurance representative came to tell us about the changes that would go into effect when our Blue Cross Blue Shield policy was renewed. No one was prepared for the shock of discovering that our usual co-pay for an office visit to any doctor would be doubled for our primary care doc and quadrupled for any specialist we saw, including HIV specialists. The percentage of coverage went down from 100% to 90% and a $1,000 “coinsurance” cost was added, thus essentially tripling our deductible. The co-pays for drug coverage also ballooned upward. For my HIV-positive colleagues, there were a lot of deer-in-the-headlights faces. One co-worker who’s fighting cancer left the room in tears, not being able to wrap her mind around the tsunami wave of medical debt she would now incur.

The health care reform law promised us several things that kicked in on September 23 including: coverage for children with pre-existing conditions; children being able to stay on their parents’ policies until they were 26; no lifetime or annual limits; 100% coverage of preventive services; and mental health “parity.”

On the night of September 23, news reports began to surface about big insurance companies (WellPoint, Cigna, Aetna, Humana, and United Health, among others) suddenly deciding not to sell children’s insurance at all. That took care of the law requiring them to cover kids with pre-existing conditions and also, depending on the policy, the law about them being able to be covered through their parents’ insurance until age 26. Days later, news came that while there might be the possibility to cover children with pre-existing conditions, the premiums would now be so high that many parents could not afford them.

While both the preventive services coverage and the annual limits on essential benefits were acknowledged by our new BCBS policy, they came with the following caveats: “Certain preventive services will be covered 100%…the insurance industry is waiting for guidance as to exactly what preventive services will be covered this way. There are some lists of services available, but there is much debate about the topic,” and “The insurance industry is still waiting for guidance as to what exactly ‘essential health benefits’ are. We do not yet know exactly what annual limits will be removed…It also appears that although dollar limits can no longer apply, carriers may use a visit or days limit.” Uh-huh. The one benefit that they haven’t figured a way to wriggle out of is the “no lifetime limit” provision, but perhaps they realize that, considering the way the rest of the changes restrict access to care and treatment, life expectancy is bound to go down anyway. The U.S. already ranks 49th in the world in terms of life expectancy – how much further down will we slide?

In November, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the findings from their analysis of the National Health Interview Survey for 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and the first quarter of 2010. The survey covered 90,000 individuals from 35,000 households. The findings revealed that 3 million more people “went for a year or more with no health insurance” in the first quarter of 2010 than in 2008 and that half of the uninsured were above the poverty level [thus de-bunking the myth that only the poor aren’t insured]. “One in three adults under 65 who made between $44,000 and $65,000 a year, the ‘middle income’ range, were uninsured at some point during the year.” The growing number of people without coverage “meant more people with chronic illnesses such as diabetes and asthma [not to mention HIV] were skipping or postponing care, increasing the likelihood of costly complications.” According to the report, “40 percent of Americans have one or more chronic conditions.”

Most people over age 64 have “universal coverage,” through Medicare, but older adults who skip doctor’s visits because they lack insurance “are sicker when they reach 65, which further taxes Medicare.” But there was a nugget of good news: “Public programs such as Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIPs) have reduced the number of children without medical insurance from ten million two years ago to 8.7 million today.” Yes, those evil, “socialist” programs have helped almost two million children.

Proponents of the Patients’ Protection and Affordable Care Act would probably urge us to wait and see how those numbers of uninsured improve as the “reform” laws are implemented. Really? As it is, millions of people will find themselves in the same boat I float in—paying thousands of dollars they really can’t afford for “coverage” that ends up resulting in inadequate or even no care. I predict the number of uninsured will continue to climb, as will the number of preventable diseases, hospitalizations, and even deaths.

I believe there’s only one way to fix this. The “free market” concept touted by Tea Partiers and “fiscal conservatives” is only available to those who can afford to participate in it. A hybrid system of private and public mechanisms will never work because those two sectors would be working at cross purposes – the private side working towards profitability and the public side working toward access. Not even the vague suggestion that we go back to the days when a patient paid his doctor directly will work unless, like in those days, docs are willing to take chickens or lawn care or car repair as payment for their services. There may be some who would be, but I somehow doubt it would be the majority, just as I doubt that doctors who are used to making $250 for a 15-minute consultation would suddenly accept making the $20 a patient like me would save up in order to have one office visit. And it’s not that I begrudge them the $250 – there is just no way I could ever pay it.

The bottom line may be a bitter pill for capitalists to take—health care can no longer be seen as a profit-driven industry. “Socialized” medicine is our only hope; a single-payer, government-run, tax-financed system as proposed in Congress as House Bill 676. And, really, seriously, should anyone profit from the pain and suffering of someone needing medical care?

Before you tape teabags to your forehead and start marching with your “Keep your hands off my Medicare!” sign (Hello-oo! Government-run!), take a minute to look at these numbers proposed by the sponsors of HR-676. Right now, 94% of us pay 1.45% of our annual income into the Medicare/Medicaid system. That money, plus another 3.3% of our income would be paid into a universal health care trust fund, making our total contribution 4.75% of our income. Consider this: what percentage of your income did you pay last year in premiums, co-pays, deductibles, coinsurance, drug costs, and costs that weren’t covered by your insurance? Chances are it was significantly more than 4.75%. In fact, by doing some simple calculations, you can figure out how much more money you’d have in your pocket if we had single-payer health care. Example: by the end of 2010, I will have spent $6,833 for health care. If we’d had single payer, my taxes would have gone up by $1,122 (less than I now pay in premiums alone), but my cost for health care would have been $1,615, thereby putting $5,218 back in my pocket.

Economic stimulus? Put a few thousand dollars back into the wallets of the much-mentioned-but-then-ignored middle class and no more bailouts would be necessary. Jobs? Take the cost-prohibitive element of health insurance off employers’ plates and they’d have more money with which to grow their businesses, thus leading to hiring more employees; plus, unions and management would no longer have to struggle with health insurance as a negotiation focus.

Yes, your taxes would be higher. But there will no longer be sleepless nights or tearful days worrying about how to pay the bills. If you hate your job and want to find a better one, you will no longer be trapped by the fear of losing your insurance. Are you stuck with a doctor you don’t like or trust because he or she is the only one near you “in the network?” No problem—in a single-payer system, every doctor is a network doc. Do you buy the alarmist warnings of the Right about the government “interfering” with the treatment you and your doctor decide is best for you? Yeah, like no insurance company bureaucrat has ever told someone terrified of having cancer that they can’t have an MRI because an X-ray is “just as good,” despite their doctor’s insistence that it isn’t. The fact is that insurance companies have a vested interest in keeping us sick. The government would have a vested interest in improving the health of every American—better health, lower costs, greater productivity, more tax money coming in, less spending on entitlement programs that support the unemployed, no Medicaid or separate Medicare costs, no ADAP.

In addition to the stimulus to our economy, there is also the benefit of people who are currently on disability being able to return to the work force. A colleague recently told me, “In 1992, a case manager awkwardly admitted that even though I wanted to go back to work (and was physically able to, despite my KS lesions), I would have to remain destitute so that I could qualify for disability. The prospect of being poverty-stricken and dependent on the state just simply to stay alive was even worse than being told I had AIDS. It was a living death.” How many others like him could become productive, tax-paying members of society if they weren’t chained to disability, if their health care was provided no matter where they went back to work?

As that CDC study revealed, the greater the financial barrier to access to care, the sicker people are when they finally get to a doctor. Just as ADAP advocates know only too well, without treatment, infections spread, hospitalizations increase, and complications multiply. Because the current system is more about money than about health, costs will continue to soar (as will profits) and instead of paying $4.75 of every $100 we make for health care, we will soon be struggling to pay $100 for every $4.75 we make, accumulating the kind of deficit only the government is capable of. And, as we know, no bailout will be coming our way.

This is not just a “fringe” issue anymore. There are currently at least 31 states that have established single-payer organizations. Vermont is progressing towards passing its single-payer legislation and Pennsylvania has achieved the unexpected success of gathering the support Republicans and the business community (Health Care for All Pennsylvania recently elected a Republican as its President). As health outcomes and access to medical care continue to decline, and the more people learn about the real benefits of a single-payer system, not just to individuals, but to every sector of society, the less “radical” an idea it will become, regardless of Tea Party posturing.

A distressing number of people who work in the HIV/AIDS field say that true universal health care is a fantasy that is eons away from happening, that we’d better just go along with this non-reform and try to make it work as best we can. They can’t seem to imagine a reality where ADAP funding is a moot point because ADAP will no longer be necessary or a day when no one will put off being tested because they figure they won’t be able to afford treatment anyway.

Being complacent about injustice has never righted a wrong. Just shutting up and taking whatever comes along has never resulted in progress or beneficial change.

If everyone in this country who’s struggling with a chronic medical condition of any kind bonded together to demand a single-payer health care system, we would be an awesome and undeniable tsunami of our own. We’d better stand up and ride that wave before we’re swept away.

To find out more and connect with other single-payer advocates, go to www.healthcare-now.org or your state’s single-payer organizations. In Illinois, www.ilsinglepayercoalition.org.

If you’re a health care provider, go to www.pnhp.org.

MONTPELIER, Vt. — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and Gov. Peter Shumlin spoke before health profession students who gathered Saturday at the Statehouse in support of single-payer health care.

The Vermont House passed a version of the universal health care bill, which is being championed by Shumlin, with a party-line vote of 92-49 Thursday.

The bill, which will be debated in the Senate, is a critical step toward the creation of a publicly financed medical system that would deliver benefits to every resident of the state.

The students, who came from New England, New York and Pennsylvania, and as far away as Oregon, expressed concerns over the mire of paperwork and bureaucracy that they say would hamper them from practicing medicine in the way they are being trained to.

“I want my future patients to have a comprehensive health care insurance,” said Larry Bodden, a medical student at the University of Vermont.

“Whether or not the single-payer health care reforms are passed could have an effect on where I decide to practice,” Bodden said.

Bodden said he believes having a single-payer system could draw top medical professionals to the state to practice.

Bodden and 38 other medical students at the school have written and signed a letter that lays out what they would like to see in a single-payer health care system that included attracting high-quality health care professionals to the state. The letter, Bodden said, is the students’ way to influence the passing of single-payer health care reforms.

“Our goal is to have a single-payer system that is balanced and sustainable,” Bodden said.

UVM Medical School student Calvin Kegan said he came out for the event because he thinks that, “as Vermont is courageously undertaking the path to universal health care that is more sustainable as a whole, it is important for future health care professionals to express their support for legislation that could affect them throughout their entire practices.”

Kegan said that he believes the current system is frustrating for physicians as the paperwork and bureaucracy can be cumbersome.

A copy of the letter was presented to Sanders, who said that he would submit it to be included in the congressional record.

“It’s inspiring,” said Sanders. “It’s one thing for Vermonters to get behind this cause, but when you see physicians and young people from all over leading the way for health care reform, you begin to see that they are saying that they can’t provide the care they want to with the system we have in place now.”

Sanders said that politicians and lobbyists, including those for drug and insurance companies in Washington, are watching the progress of the Vermont health-care bill very closely.

“If we win here, they know it will spread,” Sanders said.

In his address to the crowd, Sanders said that under the current system patients often wait too long to seek care, and when they finally do, they are much sicker, which leads to more hospitalizations and emergency room visits.

Sanders said that with a new system, patients will be able to seek care before their conditions reach such desperate stages.

Shumlin touted his belief that Vermont can lead the way for health care reform for the nation.

Members receive:

• a Healthcare-NOW! t-shirt.
• invites to monthly national single-payer activist conference call.
• access to updated single-payer resources and materials.
• invites to leadership training sessions.
• discounted Healthcare-NOW! National Strategy Conference registration.

We must continue to fight for a single-payer, universal healthcare system even as we reach the first anniversary of the Affordable Care Act. The ACA will leave millions uninsured, fail to control rising healthcare costs, continue to bankrupt our families and our communities, and leave greedy private insurance companies in control of our healthcare.

Become part of the movement to bring real change to our healthcare system.

Individuals can join Healthcare-NOW! for a suggested $40 a year contribution.

Find all the details about our membership system here.

With your support, we can make the movement for improved Medicare for all stronger. Please join us today.

Have questions? Email info@healthcare-now.org or call 800-453-1305.

The council covers workers in Daviess, Hancock, Ohio, and McLean Counties in Kentucky. Donna Haynes, CLC President, stated: “We support this and I have encouraged the support to protect our members, their families, and all Americans. If we don’t offer affordable, adequate health care to all Americans, we will become worse off than the third world countries.”

Haynes is also Vice President of Power Industry Local 1701 of the IBEW and works at the Big Rivers Electric in Hawesville, Kentucky.

Owensboro is the 137th CLC to endorse HR 676.

In the current Congress, HR 676 has 39 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.

From Unions for Single Payer.