March. 20, 2009:NWLP
3/17/09
9:51 AM
Page 7
Health care reform
The menace of ‘individual mandates’
By PETER SHAPIRO
For years, organized labor has
fought for decent health benefits in our
union contracts. Now, with health in-
surance costs soaring and millions
thrown out of work in this economic
crisis, the system of job-based coverage
is clearly unsustainable. The only ques-
tion is whether congressional attempts
to fashion a new one will leave us better
off, or worse.
According to Max Baucus, chair of
the Senate Finance Committee, we can
forget about single payer: it’s “off the
table.” Baucus and some of his Senate
colleagues (including, sadly, Oregon’s
Ron Wyden), propose to replace job-
based insurance with “individual man-
dates”— that is, requiring everyone to
purchase their own health insurance in
the private market.
The insurance industry is using all its
clout to push individual mandates
through Congress. It’s not hard to see
why. Soaring joblessness has cut into
their market. So have the growing num-
ber of employers who have dropped
health coverage for their workers. Indi-
vidual mandates provide insurers with
a guaranteed market, enforced by the
federal government and buttressed with
our tax dollars.
They are so sold on the idea that they
have offered to end their widely de-
spised practice of refusing to insure
people with pre-existing conditions in
return for all of us being legally re-
quired to buy their product.
But what’s in it for us? And why is a
Local unions chip in to help Share feed hungry
VANCOUVER — A Mardi Gras Gala and Casino Night
fundraising event for Share raised $157,000 to help fight
hunger and homelessness in Vancouver and the surrounding
community. Among the major sponsors of the event were
Painters and Allied Trades District Council 5’s PATCH
(Painters and Allied Trades for Children’s Hope), and the
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 48.
The labor organizations sponsored game tables and silent
auction items.
The gala was held Feb. 21 at the unionized Vancouver
Hilton.
Union sponsors are now needed for the Share a Bowl
Benefit Concert, to be held April 26 at Skyview High School
in Vancouver. The concert features performances by
Michael Allen Harrison, Karen Therese, Norman Sylvester,
Gunnar Roads, and others.
Sponsorship opportunities are available ranging from
$500 to $10,000. For more information about a sponsor-
ships or to order tickets, call Doug Smith at 360-750-4436,
extension 303.
Share is a non-profit organization that helps the hungry
and homeless in Clark County and the surrounding area.
labor-friendly politician like Ron
Wyden pushing it?
They’ve had individual mandates in
Massachusetts for two years. By most
accounts, it’s been a train wreck:
• Scarce public funds that used to
pay for public medical services are be-
ing diverted to subsidize premiums for
private insurers.
• Low-income patients who were
once treated free at public clinics must
now enroll in private plans where, even
with the state paying their premiums,
they’re stuck with co-payments, de-
ductibles, and prescription drug bills
they can’t afford.
• Many who aren’t poor enough to
qualify for subsidies are forced to buy
cut-rate plans which are useless in a real
medical crisis. The cheapest plan avail-
able for an individual in his mid-50s
costs $5,000 a year, has a $2,000 de-
ductible and 20 percent co-payments
for each doctor’s visit. But if you don’t
buy coverage, the state fines you
$1,000!
This is not reform — any more than
dumping billions of our tax dollars into
insolvent banks is a recovery strategy.
Open
Forum
It’s simply giving handouts to the same
business interests whose profit-at-all-
costs behavior created the crisis.
Some union leaders who support
single payer on principle have not
pushed it aggressively, fearing a head-
on confrontation with the insurance in-
dustry. As a compromise, they’ve sug-
gested giving consumers a “public
option” to compete with private plans.
But the industry lobbyists are resisting
this idea as fiercely as they’ve resisted
single payer.
We won’t win this fight unless we’re
absolutely clear about what we want
and need. Universal coverage is not uni-
versal care. It’s time we stopped letting
politicians willfully confuse the two,
and demand that they stand up to the in-
surance industry and recognize their re-
sponsibility to the people who put them
in office.
(Editor’s Note: Peter Shapiro is a re-
tired member of Portland Letter Carri-
ers Branch 82. He edited the union’s
newsletter, B-Mike, from 2001 to 2007.)
Michael E. Hardeman, Business Representative
Sign & Display Local 510
The bank of local unions
brings 50 years of on-the-job labor experience
provides complete banking services tailored to the Local leadership
guides investments to ensure your money works as hard as you do
offers online access to keep multiple accounts easily organized
gives each and every local union their due.
Invest in you
®
Labor Management Trust Services
Stephen Heady, Vice President, (503) 450-1270
Louis Nagy, Vice President, (503) 450-1273
Labor Management Deposit Services
Diane Williams, Senior Vice President & Manager, (213) 236-5085
John Mendoza, Vice President & Relationship Manager, (415) 705-7112
Visit us at unionbank.com
MARCH 20, 2009
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
©2007 Union Bank of California, N.A. Member FDIC
PAGE 7