AFL Says No Deal Between Trumka and Rahm on Public Option

This morning we reported that there was a meeting between Richard Trumka and Rahm Emanuel today. According to AFL-CIO spokesman Eddie Vale, the meeting is over and Trumka is standing strong on the public option

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Are Industry Lobbyists Raising Our Health Care Premiums?

While the Senate Finance Committee is slogging through more than 530 amendments to Sen. Max Baucus’ flawed health care reform bill, more than 2,700 lobbyists are working overtime to protect the private health insurance industry and other health care corporations.

Yesterday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called for an investigation into the connection between the millions of dollars that health insurance companies are spending on lobbying expenses to kill health care reform and soaring premiums. Today, Bloomberg News reports that more than half of the health care industry’s hired-gun lobbyists are former congressional staffers, White House employees or government agency veterans—55 are former members of Congress.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va..) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) each plan to offer a public option amendment next week. Says Rockefeller:

A health-care plan without a public option is a much weaker health plan because insurance companies continue to rule. [A public option] is going to force other companies to bring down costs over time.

All 10 committee Republicans will oppose the amendments and it may not win enough of the 13 Democratic votes. If it fails in committee, Schumer says he will take the fight to the floor when the full Senate votes.

Read it all here.

AFL-CIO Unanimously Endorses Single-Payer - Medicare-for-All - Healthcare

by National Nurses Movement
Wed Sep 16, 2009

The campaign for the most comprehensive healthcare reform of all, single payer, won a huge boost Tuesday as the AFL-CIO voted unanimously at its national convention in Pittsburgh to endorse the enactment of single-payer, universal healthcare.

The vote came shortly after the convention was addressed by President Obama who repeated his call for comprehensive healthcare reform, and will accompany another AFL-CIO resolution supporting other Congressional efforts to pass comprehensive reform.

It marked the first time in some two decades that the AFL-CIO, the leading voice of the American labor movement, which includes 56 unions and more than 10 million members, has been formally on record in support of single-payer, which would essentially expand and improve Medicare to cover all Americans.

Statements by a host of delegates on the resolution, which was sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the Alameda County (California) Central Labor Council, affirmed for many that even after a bill is passed in Congress, the fight will continue.

In urging its support, CNA/NNOC Executive Director Rose Ann DeMoro, an AFL-CIO National Vice-President, noted the recent death of Crystal Lee Sutton, the real-life union organizer from the film Norma Rae who died last week after a long battle with cancer, exacerbated by her own three-year fight with her insurance company.

"No one should spend the last days of their life fighting with their insurance company," said DeMoro. "We should not make choices of who gets healthcare based on their ethnicity, gender, or economic status. But I am addressing the labor movement, not Wall Street. And we all know what is the right thing – the moral thing – single-payer healthcare."

The resolution notes that "the experience of Medicare (and of nearly every other industrialized country) shows the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality healthcare is through a single-payer system. Our nation should provide a single high standard of comprehensive care for all." It also sites specific single-payer bills, including HR 676, which has 86 cosponsors in Congress.

It also followed a reception hosted by CNA/NNOC and other unions Monday night featuring filmmaker Michael Moore whose previous film SiCKO presaged the current national debate with its indictment of the healthcare industry, and was on hand to premiere his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story to the AFL-CIO convention.

Moore recalled that 65 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights which called for a right to universal medical care, a fight that continues. He noted that every day the healthcare industry spends over $1 million to block reform while thousands of Americans continue to lose coverage, and urged labor and community activists to keep up the fight.

Regardless of the outcome of the current healthcare legislative action, said United Steel Workers President Leo Gerard, "we’re going to continue the fight for single-payer. I’m not in favor of universal insurance, I’m in favor of universal healthcare. We are going to fight to make sure every single American gets high quality healthcare."

"We know the patient care crisis, we see it every day," said CNA/NNOC co-president Zenei Cortez, RN at the reception. "We will not rest until we get rid of the private insurance companies that profit off of suffering."

Greg Junemann, president of International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers and chair of the HR 676 Labor Caucus, which has won similar endorsements from hundreds of international and local unions and state and local labor federations, noted to the convention the unity of labor in fighting for real reform. He also cited the ongoing fight of workers every day to protect the health coverage many have now.

"The labor movement needs to set our flag on the top of the mountain, and that we will not rest until we have single-payer healthcare for all," said Junemann.

Clyde Rivers, past president of the California School Employees Association, noted the huge drain of healthcare costs on California schools and school workers. The Los Angeles school district, he noted, "could save $20 billion if we had single payer. Think of all the programs that could be put back in place" if those resources were returned.

Donna DeWitt, president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO, who noted to groans and jeers that her governor is Mark Sanford and her Congress member is Joe Wilson, added that "we understand struggle and that struggle makes us stronger."

Labor unions around the country have been in the forefront of grassroots actions around the nation in support of single-payer and many labor bodies submitted resolutions to the national convention in support of an endorsement. It was also the culmination of a growing, national push within the labor movement. More than 566 labor organizations, including 22 international unions, 134 central labor councils, and 39 state AFL-CIO federations, have also endorsed HR 676.

Labor has been central to enactment of similar systems around the world, DeMoro noted, in her comments paying tribute as well to the many international guests at the convention.

She pointed out how most of them represent industrial nations where no one dies from lack of health coverage or goes bankrupt or loses homes due to un-payable medical bills.

"The reason? Because they have single-payer or other national healthcare systems, and because your labor movement led the fight for healthcare. Here insurance companies are at the apex of power, controlling our lives. It is not the public option we should be questioning, it is the private option and its horrendous power over our families," DeMoro said.

"When we meet again in four years, perhaps if we adopt single-payer, we will be like all our international brothers and sisters in this room, and no longer be the richest nation in the world but just 37th in healthcare," DeMoro said.

Cross-posted from Daily Kos

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AFL-CIO Convention Endorses Single-Payer
Unanimous Vote for Medicare-for-All Reform

PITTSBURGH – In a historic vote that adds the nation’s leading voice of American workers to a broad national campaign, the AFL-CIO voted unanimously at its national convention here today to endorse the enactment of single-payer, universal healthcare for all Americans.

The resolution was sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, AFL-CIO, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, and the Alameda County (California) Central Labor Council.

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Over 70 Labor Organizations Call on AFL-CIO Convention to Endorse HR 676

Pittsburgh, PA. More than seventy labor organizations have submitted resolutions to the AFL-CIO Convention calling for the labor federation to endorse HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

Resolutions were submitted by five national and international unions including the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU), the International Alliance of Theatrical & Stage Employees (IATSE), the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), California School Employees Association (CSEA), and the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers (IFPTE).

Seven state AFL-CIO Federations submitted resolutions including Wisconsin, South Carolina, Maine, Michigan, Kentucky, California and Vermont.

The remaining resolutions were submitted by Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations in twenty states.

All resolutions, including one expected to be submitted by the Executive Council, will be referred to the Convention’s Legislative Policy Committee which is chaired by Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers.

Healthcare is expected to be discussed on Tuesday September 15th after President Obama addresses the Convention.

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample endorsement resolution, contact:
Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org

AFL-CIO won't back healthcare reform without public option

WASHINGTON -- The AFL-CIO, a key ally of the White House on healthcare reform, won't support legislation unless it includes a public insurance option.

"Let me be as clear as I can be -- it's an absolute must," Rich Trumka, the labor group's secretary-treasurer, and its next president, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday morning. "We won't support the bill if it doesn't have a public option."

That could add to the pressure on the White House and Senate Democrats to pull the plug on bipartisan talks aimed at bringing Republicans along with the plan. The GOP has more or less indicated opposition to just about everything Obama wants to do with healthcare, but especially the public option. Iowa Republican Chuck Grassley, the lead negotiator for his party, wrote a fundraising letter to his constituents this week that asks for their "immediate support in helping me defeat 'Obama-care.'" His office later clarified -- Grassley only meant he was trying to defeat the public option.

House leaders have already said they can't pass a bill there if the Senate strips the public option out, and most of the Senate Democratic caucus seems to support the public option, as well. Now add labor to the mix, and a clear picture is emerging: If the White House and Senate Democrats decide to jettison that part of the plan in order to win Republican votes, the political stumbling blocks to reform won't be cleared away. They'll just have moved from the right to the left. So the question may soon be whether it's worth continuing the negotiations, not what the negotiations will produce.

Congress comes back to Washington next week, and the bipartisan group will have less than two weeks to reach some sort of agreement before the Sept. 15 deadline Senate Democratic leaders have set.

Source: Salon.com

Richard Trumka Gives Speech on Final Night of Netroots Nation '09

In a wide ranging speech to the annual Netroots Nation Convention, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer, said, "My preference, and the feeling of many in the labor movement, is that we should have a single payer health care system."

Trumka’s speech followed an impassioned appeal for single payer by Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Ferlo who presented the Paul Wellstone Award to Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY). Massa is a co-sponsor and one of the most outspoken supporters of HR 676, single payer healthcare legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).

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Labor Leader To Blue Dogs: "Don't DARE Ask For Support" If You Stand in the Way

And if you stab us in the back on health care this year don’t you dare ask us for our support next year!

AFL-CIO Secretary Treasurer Richard Trumka traveled to Nevada on Monday to address the Sheet Metal Workers International Association (SMWIA) to talk about the new approach the labor movement will be taking towards conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats and Senate centrists like Senators Max Baucus and Blanche Lincoln.

The SMWIA is the first union to have suspended all campaign donations to ALL Democratic candidates until the Employee Free Choice Act and a bill addressing real Health Care Reform are passed. The SMWIA, along with a coalition of over a dozen unions will be running ads next week targeting several Democratic Senators and a Republican.

Read it all at Daily Kos