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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 2006)
Think Again • CLUW reminds women to screen for cervical cancer By Tim Nesbitt What my daughter and grandson can tell us about health care reform T he experience of my daughter and grandson offers a telling ex- ample of what is right and what is wrong with our health care system in this country — and a reminder of how careful we should be when it comes to overhauling a public-private system that is critical to the financial well-being of working families. Three years ago, my grandson, Antonio, was born with a severe case of cerebral palsy. Antonio is a delightful boy with a beautiful smile, but he may never be able to walk or talk or care for him- self. He has had numerous surgeries and battles frequent seizures. And my daughter has had to scale back her college studies as she cares for her son and navigates the health care sys- tem. Still, we were lucky to have health insurance for both my daughter and my grandson at the time of his birth and in the months that followed, when his medical bills approached $300,000. That insurance was pro- vided by my former employer until my daughter turned 21 and could no longer maintain her status as a full- time student. Now we gladly pay $900 a month to maintain coverage for her and Antonio. Otherwise, An- tonio’s medical bills would have wiped out my daughter’s college sav- ings and a good portion of her par- ents’ assets as well. When it comes to health care, my family has a lot to be thankful for. Thanks to a generous employer-paid health plan, Antonio’s post-natal care was covered in full. Thanks to a government mandate called COBRA, my daughter could continue that coverage on her own when she lost eligibility for my em- ployer’s insurance. And, thanks to family savings from living-wage jobs, we can probably help my daughter pay her health insurance premiums until she or her future hus- band gets a job with dependent health care benefits. But, if my daughter didn’t have the help that came from her family’s good jobs with good benefits, she’d be in the same boat as tens of thou- sands of other parents of children with disabilities and disabled young adults in this country. I attended a workshop on disability benefits with several of these parents and young adults last year. Many are eager to work as best they can, but they will have to stay relatively poor to qualify for health insurance paid by our gov- ernment. In order for Antonio to qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and the Oregon Health Plan, my daughter can have no more than $2,000 in assets beyond a home, fur- nishings and a car. Antonio can’t qualify for Social Security disability benefits because neither he nor my daughter has prior employment cov- ered by Social Security. This is what has happened to our government’s health and welfare sys- tems. Unlike the social insurance pro- grams offered in other wealthy na- tions, many social programs in the U.S. serve only the poor. Middle- class workers pay the bulk of the taxes that support these programs, such as SSI, but then they have to spend down their assets in order to collect those benefits when they need them. It is worth keeping these realities in mind as we join the debate about health care reform in this country. Former Governor John Kitzhaber wants to establish universal health care by ending tax subsidies for em- ployers who provide health insurance for their workers and reducing Medicare benefits for higher-income seniors. In effect, he’d raise taxes on employers who provide health insur- ance and spend less on health care for older people in order to give govern- ment the resources it needs to extend coverage to the uninsured. But the employers who would pay those higher taxes provide health in- surance to 60 percent of Americans. That’s what paid the bills for my grandson’s post-natal care. And, if we shift more responsibility to gov- ernment for providing health care, I’m concerned that lawmakers will limit benefits to those who are poor or nearly poor — a group that I hope will never include my daughter. To his credit, Kitzhaber’s plan would cover the uninsured. But many of the uninsured are working people whose employers shirk their respon- sibility for providing health insur- ance. I’d rather force those irrespon- sible employers to provide health in- surance for their workers before we ask good employers to pay more for their workers’ health care or ask sen- iors to forgo some of their promised Medicare benefits. Senator John Kerry offered differ- ent ideas about health care reform in 2004. He wanted the government to guarantee health care for all children and help good employers who pro- vide health insurance by having the government cover the bulk of their catastrophic costs. His approach would have reduced employer-paid health insurance costs that are largely circumstantial or hard to control, e.g. the costs attributed to the number of kids enrolled in a given plan (by the way, union plans cover far more chil- dren than non-union plans) and the incidence of catastrophic events (like my grandson’s post-natal care). Kerry’s ideas would be a lot more helpful to my daughter and grandson and to most middle-class families, because they would bolster the health benefits paid by employers. Good health insurance is a bul- wark of the middle class, as impor- tant as a living-wage job, home own- ership and a good retirement plan. If we start to remove supports for our employer-financed system of health insurance, we will see more employ- ers abandon their responsibility for their workers’ health care and more middle-class families tumble into poverty. Then the taxes we pay on our paychecks will be stretched even thinner to help the growing ranks of the poor without health insurance. Don’t get me wrong. We need government to solve our health care crisis. Our union movement can’t do it just by organizing more workers and bargaining better contracts. But we have to make sure that we de- mand solutions from government that encourage employers to continue their financial support for their work- ers’ health care and provide afford- able benefits for all working families, all income groups and all genera- tions, from grandparents to grand- children. Tim Nesbitt is a former president of the Oregon AFL-CIO. WASHINGTON. D.C. — Re- minding union women the over- whelming majority of health plans now cover the procedure, the Coali- tion of Labor Union Women is urging union women to make appointments in January for cervical cancer screen- ing. The month is Cervical Cancer Screening Month. “Cervical cancer is the only cancer for which we know the cause. Virtu- ally all cervical cancers — 99 percent — are caused by the human papillo- mavirus (HPV), which can be de- tected through regular screenings be- fore it becomes cancer,” CLUW campaign coordinator Carolyn Jacob- son said. CLUW notes that more than 86 percent of female unionists — three times as many as a decade ago — have health insurance and most health plans today cover the Pap and HPV tests for women over 30. “It’s up to each of us to make certain that union women know how to prevent getting cervical cancer. The most important risk factor for cervical cancer is the failure to be screened regularly,” CLUW added. Unionists can also check whether their health plans cover the HPV and Pap smears, and if not, why not. That information is available from the HPV Patient Help Hotline toll-free at 1- 866-895-1HPV (1-866-895-1478). If your health plan does not cover the HPV test or only covers it as a “di- agnostic” test, then it’s time to lobby your local. CLUW says. It says fe- male unionists should lobby “the union official you regularly deal with” on health issues “and find out what he/she recommends as the next step.” Unionists can arrange for materials for a presentation on cervical cancer, Q } by downloading data from www.cluw.org, by calling CLUW at (202) 223-8360, ext. 4. Local 11 member seeks public office Sherry Parker, a member of Office and Professional Employees Local 11, will run as a Democrat for the office of Clark County Clerk in Vancouver, Wash., this November. Parker has worked as a courtroom assistant in the Clerk’s office since 1998. Prior to that she was a legal secretary/accountant for the Superior Court in the Juvenile Department. The Clerk’s office has an annual budget of approximately $1.5 million and a staff of 40. “I have experience managing people, time and resources,” Parker said. “I know the challenges our office faces due to tight budgets and high caseloads and I know how the county budget process works.” Parker is married to Philip A. Parker, a member of IBEW Local 48 and president of the Labor Roundtable of Southwest Wash- ington. Two sons, Jeffrey and David, also are members of Local 48. Quest Investment Management, Inc. 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