Single-payer government health care bill gains union backers
By MARK GRUENBERG
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A bill es-
tablishing a government-run Canadian-
style single-payer health care system for
the U.S., built on Medicare, is gaining
union backers.
The measure, H.R. 676 by Rep. John
Conyers (D-Mich.), would eliminate
the private, for-profit health insurance
industry by establishing a government-
run system.
The “United States National Health
Insurance Act” would be funded
through the federal budget, says a fact
Local Motion
April 2006
Union election activity in Oregon and SW Washington,
according to the National Labor Relations Board
and the Oregon Employment Relations Board
Elections held
Results:
Company
Date
Union
Location
McCabe’s Quality Foods
4/12
Teamsters Local 162
Union
No
Union
Portland
11
39
Eugene
24
1
Rural Metro of Oregon
4/14 Nat. Emergency Medical Services Assn. Salem
30
8
Oregon Potato Company (decertification)
4/14
Teamsters Local 670
Boardman
20
21
Lane County
4/13
Fed. Ore. Parole Officers
Elections requested
Company
Union
Location
# of employees
KINK Radio (decertification)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
Portland
20
General Distributors (decertification)
Teamsters Local 162
Portland
22
KKEX 1190 AM & KPOJ 620 AM (decertification)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
Portland
21
City of Forest Grove (decertification)
AFSCME Council 75
Forest Grove
49
Pendleton
Umatilla County (Sheriff’s Department)
80
Umatilla County Law Enforcement Assn vs. SEIU Local 503
St. Helens
Columbia County (parole and probation)
12
Fed. of Ore. Parole & Probation Officers vs. AFSCME Council 75
The Dalles
Wasco County (parole and probation)
5
Fed. of Ore. Parole & Probation Officers vs. AFSCME Council 75
Deschutes County (parole and probation)
Fed. of Ore. Parole & Probation Officers vs. AFSCME Council 75
Armadillo Underground
Communications Workers of America Local 7906
Beko Membrane Technology
Machinists Woodworkers District Lodge 1
Center Point Graphics
Graphic Communications District Council 2 Local 747-M
Cove School District
Oregon School Employees Association
sheet from the Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, which covers health issues.
Momentum for Conyers’bill comes
just after the Massachusetts Legislature
voted to require every state resident to
buy insurance.
Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who
plans to seek his party’s presidential
nomination, signed the bill, but used his
line-item veto to axe its provisions that
required corporations to pay their fair
share of health care insurance. That
prompted AFL-CIO President John
Sweeney to say “it is simply ridiculous”
for Romney to “try to solve Massachu-
setts’ health care problems by dumping
them on the backs of working people.”
“An individual mandate to buy in-
surance can only work if it is paired
with a guarantee of affordable, compre-
hensive coverage, and the legislation
falls dangerously short of that goal,”
Sweeney added.
He said the result is that a single
worker earning $28,000 a year would
have to pay $350 a month — or 15 per-
cent of pre-tax income — for health in-
surance. Health care now takes slightly
more than one-sixth of U.S. gross do-
mestic product — the measurement of
the value of all goods and services in the
country.
The latest backers of Conyers’ bill
were United Auto Workers Local 1155
in Birmingham, Alabama; Machinists
Lodge 1145, representing railroad ma-
chinists in Selkirk and DeWitt, NY; and
American Federation of Teachers Lo-
cal 2334, which represents more than
20,000 faculty and staff at City Univer-
sity of New York.
The Ohio legislative board of the
Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers
and Trainmen, an affiliate of the Team-
sters also endorsed the bill. The union
said it will take the cause to its confer-
ence convention in June and, if it wins,
to the Teamsters convention immedi-
ately afterwards.
Amalgamated Transit Union Local
825, which represents bus drivers, me-
chanics and other workers at New Jer-
sey Transit, also voted to ask its parent
international to back Conyers’ bill.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 131
union organizations, including 23 cen-
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MORRIS & KAPLAN, LLP
Attorneys at Law
Representing Unions and Workers Since 1960
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“No cost-sharing would be imposed
and benefits would only be available
from public or non-profit providers,” it
adds. “Non-profit HMOs that deliver
care in their own facilities and employ
clinicians on a salaried basis could par-
ticipate.”
And there would be no insurance
premiums.
Hospitals and nursing homes would
get monthly lump-sum payments while
doctors and nurses would get fee-for-
service payments under a negotiated fee
schedule based initially on current pre-
vailing fees or reimbursement, the foun-
dation says.
Data from America’s Agenda:
Health Care For All, a group headed by
former United Food and Commercial
Workers President Doug Dority, shows
health insurance premiums rose 60 per-
cent since the year 2000, but “the pro-
portion of premiums that insurers paid
out for medical costs declined” in the
same time.
The money went into insurers’ prof-
its and claims processing — paperwork.
Other data shows private insurers spend
approximately one-fifth of their revenue
on overhead, including processing.
Medicare — the basis for Conyers’ bill
— spends three percent.
• W ORKERS ’ C OMPENSATION I NJURIES
Salem
7
Bend
7
tral labor councils and two state AFL-
CIO federations (Kentucky and Penn-
sylvania).
Conyers’bill also has 68 U.S. House
co-sponsors. None are from Oregon and
only Jim McDermott has co-sposnred
from Washington.
But Conyers’ bill may not see the
light of day in the Republican-con-
trolled Congress, which instead is con-
sidering legislation in the Senate that
would supposedly help small busi-
nesses band together to get health in-
surance.
In reality, the AFL-CIO said, that
measure, pushed by the National Fed-
eration of Independent Business, could
raise the premiums on people who are
insured and increase the number of the
uninsured, now 46 million.
Conyers’ bill would mandate com-
prehensive coverage of “all medically
necessary services:” primary care and
prevention, inpatient and outpatient
care, long-term care, emergency care,
mental health services, prescription
drugs, durable medical equipment, full
dental services (except cosmetic den-
tistry), substance abuse treatment, chi-
ropractic services and basic vision care
and vision correction, the summary
says.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
(Our Legal Staff are Proud Members of UFCW Local 555)
PAGE 9