Fwd: The AFL-CIO Convention and Medicare for All
Francis Sandy Eaton, RN
Begin forwarded message:From: "Mark Dudzic, Labor Campaign for Single Payer" <organ...@laborforsinglepayer.org>Subject: The AFL-CIO Convention and Medicare for AllDate: October 5, 2017 at 12:23:39 AM EDTReply-To: organ...@laborforsinglepayer.org
Dear Sandy
The powerful grassroots movement that emerged to defeat Trumpcare has changed the terms of debate. The American people have come to the conclusion that they want more than an inadequate status quo. They want the right to healthcare. A majority of the American people now support single payer Medicare for All.
On September 13, Bernie Sanders submitted his Medicare for All Bill to the U.S. Senate. In previous years, he could not find a single senator to cosponsor this legislation. This time he was joined by 16 Democratic cosponsors.
These senators didn't add their names to this historic bill because they suddenly came to the realization that single payer was the best public policy. They were responding to the clamor of an aroused electorate who were making it clear that they would be held accountable.
Now is the time for a united labor movement to get behind the growing crusade to win expanded and improved Medicare for All. As trade unionists, we know that bargaining for healthcare is unsustainable and is the biggest cause of strikes, lockouts and concession bargaining. We need to take healthcare off the bargaining table by making it a right for everyone in America.
The Labor Campaign for Single Payer is supporting efforts to put the AFL-CIO on record as endorsing the Sanders Medicare for All Bill at its upcoming St. Louis Convention. This effort is consistent with positions taken by the AFL-CIO at its 2009 and 2013 Conventions and its July 2017 Executive Council meeting.
Seventeen national unions, state labor federations and central labor councils have submitted the below resolution for consideration at the October 22-25 Convention. This resolution calls on the AFL-CIO to actually implement its policy in support of single payer by endorsing and actively supporting a concrete piece of legislation. This is a major step both for the labor movement and for the broader healthcare justice movement.
There are two things your union can do to support this important resolution:
1. While the September 22 deadline has passed on AFL-CIO affiliates to cosponsor this resolution (except for state federations who hold conventions less than 30 days prior to the October 22 Convention opening day), we are asking that AFL-CIO affiliates--national unions, state federations, central labor councils and constituency groups--send a letter to AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka expressing their support for the "Making Health Care a Right" resolution. Please ask your union to do so as soon as possible. If your union has already sponsored the resolution, please thank them and ask that they hold the line against any efforts to water it down in committee. (Send letters to: President Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO, 815 16th St. NW, Washington, DC 20006 and email us a copy at organ...@laborforsinglepayer.org).
2. Join us at the convention for a Medicare for All briefing and strategy discussion on Monday, October 23 at 5 pm (upon the close of the afternoon workshops) in the Marriott Grand Hotel (room will be posted). Convention delegates, guests and all supporters of the Labor Campaign are invited. Please share this information with your union's convention delegation.
The proposed resolution reads as follows:
Making Health Care a Right
Resolution to 2017 AFL-CIO Convention submitted by: Albany County Central Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), California School Employees Association (CSEA), Green Mountain Labor Council AFL-CIO, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America (UAW), International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers (IFPTE), National Nurses United (NNU), SMART Transportation, Troy Area Labor Council AFL-CIO, Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), Vermont State Labor Council AFL-CIO, Washington State Labor Council AFL-CIO
Getting the health care we need, no matter who we are and regardless of our circumstances in life, is fundamental to our well-being as individuals and as a nation. That is why the American labor movement has fought for more than a century to make health care a basic right in the United States. We support and will campaign to establish a single-payer system, like Medicare for All, which provides universal coverage using a social insurance model, while retaining a role for workers’ health plans. To reach our goal for achieving this expeditiously, we endorse S1804 (Sanders), the Medicare for All Act of 2017.S 1804 would extend health care provided on a single-payer basis to all Americans after a four-year transition period. In its first year of enactment, it would lower Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 55, while also including all children from birth to age 18. This would provide coverage for pre-65 retirees whose current health benefits earned through work are increasingly at risk. In the following three years, S 1804 would continue to expand the age of people covered under Medicare, until all Americans are included. This transition also envisions a time-limited public health insurance option as an alternative to for-profit insurance companies.
The urgency for this reform is clear every day at the bargaining table, where we seek to preserve the benefits workers have earned, but see our potential wage and pension improvements diverted to the pockets of the insurance companies and their high-salaried executives. Furthermore, the price of health insurance along with prescription drugs and hospital charges keep rising, and these costs are increasingly shifted to workers, creating an unsustainable situation for the average American worker.
We have a real opportunity to achieve the labor movement’s historic demand for healthcare as a human right, and we will engage with all affiliate bodies and constituency groups to campaign to win Medicare for All, S 1804.
In Solidarity,
Mark Dudzic
National Coordinator
The Labor Campaign for Single-Payer
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