Health care tops a growing list of worries
By John Sweeney, President of AFL-CIO
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Sep. 5, 2005
Despite the “recovery,” economic dissatisfaction among working Americans is increasing. Nearly 60 percent are not happy with the country’s economic situation, according to new research by Peter D. Hart Research for the AFL-CIO.
Rising health-care costs are eating away at Americans’ security. Fifty percent of working people say they personally worry very or somewhat often about not being able to afford health care. With more than 40 million uninsured, too many Americans can’t afford to pay the doctor and soaring health bills are one of the top causes of bankruptcies in this country.
Americans are also worried about what health-care costs are doing to the country. In fact, 73 percent say establishing a national health-care system should be a top priority for Congress and the President.
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Comment: Unions have long supported comprehensive health benefit programs for their members. Many union leaders still support a strong role for unions in dictating the terms of coverage, even though the shift from a manufacturing-based economy to a service-based economy has significantly weakened their negotiating power. This weakness is exemplified by the reduced health benefits that California grocery workers received after a painful, prolonged strike.
Nevertheless, 73% of workers do want Congress and the President to establish a national health care system. Since only 12.5% of wage and salary workers are union members, the union leadership is not in a position to demand, specifically, universal, employer-sponsored coverage, but it is in a position to add political support to the movement for a universal system that would cover everyone, including the 87.5% of workers who do not belong to unions.
Employer-sponsored coverage has many deficiencies, including regressive funding, job lock, affordability for small businesses, administrative waste, deficiencies in family coverage, higher costs than public programs, and other features which characterize our fragmented system of funding care.
Union leaders would best serve the interests of their own members and the interests of all workers and everyone else, if they would support a truly universal, comprehensive, publicly administered program of national health insurance. 73% of workers are ready for it, and so are we.