AFL-CIO Convention Resolution 34

[William Barry]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marge duMond <marge....@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Subject: [mdsinglepayerlist] AFL-CIO Convention Resolution 34
To: notice-reply-g...@unionvoice.org
Cc: "mdsingle...@mdsinglepayer.org" <mdsingle...@mdsinglepayer.org>


Dear Marc Laitin,
You just wrote to me urging me to support health-care "reform." But in line with this summer’s AFL-CIO Convention Resolution 34, I thought you would be advocating for a single-payer, Medicare For All system, not some weak, watered-down “public option” and “employers [paying] their fair share.”

A single-payer system, the kind of national health care that all other rich nations enjoy, would disconnect health care from employment. Everyone would belong, always, birth to death, regardless of where or whether they worked. What a burden would be lifted from workers and employers alike! That’s the reform we need. How are we going to get it?

HERE’S WHAT MY MARYLAND SINGLE-PAYER LISTSERV REPORTED TO ME:
============================
Our effort is growing! AFL-CIO Endorses Single Payer Healthcare

(Pittsburgh, PA) The AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation representing 11.5 million workers in 57 international and national unions, has endorsed a single payer health care system as the best way to guarantee healthcare to everyone. The unanimous vote in favor of Convention Resolution 34, The Social Insurance Model for Health Care Reform, came immediately after President Obama had addressed the Convention last Tuesday.

The resolution states: "The experience of Medicare (and of nearly every other industrialized country) shows the most cost effective and equitable way to provide quality healthcare is through a single-payer system.... We reiterate our longstanding call for congressional leaders to unite behind such a plan."
=========================================
My question to you, Marc, is: What is the union going to do to enact its own Convention Resolution 34?  Your message today does not align with Convention Resolution 34. Did the AFL-CIO mean what it said?

Sincerely,
Marge duMond
Washington, DC


On 10/7/09 9:54 AM, "Marc Laitin, AFL-CIO" <peopl...@aflcio.org> wrote:

 
Dear Marge,

The clock is ticking. Every hour, another five people die because they don’t have health insurance.1

How many more have to die before everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care?

Too many have died already. We have waited long enough for real health care reform.

Call your members of Congress today toll free and demand that they support real health care reform NOW: 1-877-702-0976

Now is the time for reform. All across the country, as a part of a nationwide call-in day, tens of thousands of activists like you are calling Congress and demanding real health care reform that:
Controls costs.
Holds insurance companies accountable.
Includes a strong public health insurance option to lower costs and make sure everybody can get health care.
Requires employers to pay their fair share.
Does not add taxes or other costs for working families—we’re already paying too much.
Working together, we can make sure everyone in America has access to quality, affordable health care.

Call and tell your senators and representative to support real health care reform:
1-877-702-0976

Insurance company lobbyists and the Chamber of Commerce are doing everything they can to slow down the process and ultimately kill reform. Don’t let them block reform. The time for waiting is done. We want quality and accessible health care for all now.

In solidarity,

Marc Laitin
AFL-CIO Online Mobilization Coordinator

P.S. We voted for change last November. Now it’s time for Congress to deliver real health care reform. Call your senators and representative today: 1-877-702-0976

1 Study links 45,000 U.S. deaths to lack of insurance <http://www.unionvoice.org/ct/4pWIc1K1Faqg/>  (Reuters).

 

 
 

 

 
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