Labor Campaign For Single-Payer Healthcare

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 30 Jan 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Healthcare was launched at a national meeting of over 150 union leaders from 31 states in St. Louis, Missouri on January 10, 2009. We believe that workers and their unions can no longer bear the burden of our dysfunctional health care system. Shifting the cost of healthcare to workers under the current profit-driven system is a painful feature of virtually every set of contract negotiations these days. For the vast majority of workers without a union, the situation is even more desperate. A single-payer system is the only way to control costs, effectively reduce overhead spending, guarantee comprehensive care to all and remove a significant handicap on U. S. workers in the global economy.

Over 400 labor organizations have endorsed HR 676 "Medicare for All". We intend to build our movement where the support is strongest and our power is greatest-at the grassroots of the labor movement. We will promote active involvement at the state and local level among union members and others in the struggle for universal, comprehensive single payer healthcare and intend to work closely with all other organizations that support HR 676. We will support provisions for the retraining and income support of workers whose jobs may be made redundant by this essential legislation. We understand that victory in this fight will require more than an assembly of organizational interests-it will require the building of a social movement and an uncompromising commitment to "Medicare for All" as part of a greater public policy commitment to social justice.

California Nurses Association