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Feature
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Labor
Party
Challenges the Candidates: |
Just
Adopt
Just Health Care
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Patient Kim Saunders has a checkup in a
Toronto community health clinic. Under the Just Health Care
plan, the U.S. would join Canada and the rest of the
industrialized world in guaranteeing health coverage for all.
Photo
©2000, David Hartman, Impact Visuals |
The Labor Party has challenged the
presidential candidates — Al Gore, George Bush, Ralph Nader,
and Pat Buchanan — to adopt our Just Health Care program and
the detailed new plan we’ve developed to pay for it.
"There is absolutely no excuse for any
candidate to oppose Just Health Care," said Labor Party
national organizer Tony Mazzocchi in the June 1 letter.
"By eliminating administrative waste and profit, this
country can afford to cover all its residents with quality
health care from birth to death." The letter goes on to
detail the Just Health Care plan, the Labor Party’s program
to guarantee all Americans comprehensive health care coverage.
The first candidate to respond to the
challenge was, surprisingly, Republican George Bush.
Unfortunately, in his letter, Bush only reiterated his
previous statements on health care. Bush says he is committed
to seeing that "more Americans have access to quality,
affordable health care," but proposes virtually nothing
to make that happen. (See: "Where
Do the Candidates Stand?")
GREENS ADOPT JUST
HEALTH CARE
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Just Health Care
On the Ballot
In
Two States
Just Health Care will be on the ballot in
Alachua County, Florida, this November, thanks to the work of
the Alachua County Labor Party Organizing Committee.
The nonbinding resolution will ask voters if
they favor "legislation to create a system of universal
health care in Florida that provides all residents with
comprehensive health care coverage . . . and eliminates the
role of insurance companies in health care by creating a
publicly administered health insurance trust fund."
Organizing Committee co-chair Jenny Brown says
the resolution is based on similar nonbinding resolutions
overwhelmingly passed by voters in three Massachusetts
districts.
In Massachusetts, meanwhile, organizing is
underway to put Just Health Care on the ballot in an
additional eight state representative districts. More later!
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In complete contrast, Medea Benjamin, Green
Party candidate for the U.S. Senate in California, recently
sent a letter to Tony Mazzocchi embracing Just Health Care.
Benjamin, a human rights advocate and economist, is running
against incumbent Democrat Dianne Feinstein and GOP challenger
Tom Campbell. "I can say that I wholeheartedly endorse
the strategic thrust of the Labor Party’s Just Health Care
Campaign," wrote Benjamin. "I embrace the Labor
Party’s call for universal access to quality comprehensive
health care and to take profits out of a system that should
meet social needs rather than corporate greed." The Labor
Party is encouraging members and supporters to issue the Just
Health Care challenge to other local candidates as well.
At their recent convention, delegates of the
Association of State Green Parties voted to adopt the Just
Health Care proposal (see: LP
Convention Resolution) and the Labor Party’s entire Call for
Economic Justice. Tony Mazzocchi was a speaker at the
convention. The Labor Party will not be endorsing the Greens,
however. Delegates to the LP’s November 1998 convention
voted that the Labor Party will only endorse those running
solely as Labor Party candidates (see: "No
Endorsements" in "Where
Do the Candidates Stand").
The Labor Party’s challenge to the
candidates was accompanied by a new plan to finance Just
Health Care. The plan was developed by the Labor Party in
collaboration with economists from the Labor Institute and the
Economic Policy Institute and health care experts in
Physicians for a National Health Program. It represents the
most detailed effort yet to explain how a so-called
"single-payer" health care plan would work in this
country.
FORGET DEDUCTIBLE
& CO-PAYS
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In Canada, your health card is all you need to
get free medical care. That’s what we want. Photo
©2000, David
Hartman, Impact Visuals
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Under the financing plan, the U.S. would
continue to spend the same amount it currently spends on
health care. And yet, every resident of the U.S. would be
fully insured, deductibles and co-payments would be
eliminated, and Americans would receive comprehensive coverage
for necessary long-term care as well as mental, dental,
vision, and occupational health services. Individuals would
have the freedom to choose their doctors, hospitals, and other
health care providers.
All this is made possible by eliminating
private health insurance companies from the health care system
and replacing these profit-driven institutions with a simple
and efficient public insurance fund. This fund becomes the
"single-payer" of health insurance for all, as in
Canada.
The Labor Party proposes to maintain the
current level of government spending on health care. In
addition, the Labor Party would implement several new funding
mechanisms: the wealthy would be forced to pay their fair
share, and employers would have to pay a modest payroll tax.
Employers who now provide health insurance for their employees
would see a windfall, since the payroll tax amounts to much
less money than they currently pay for coverage.
The Just Health Care plan is unique in that it
acknowledges that eliminating administrative waste and profit
from the health care system will result in the loss of over a
million jobs in the insurance industry. The plan includes a
major allocation of resources to fund a "just
transition" for all workers laid off as a result of Just
Health Care. Under the plan, workers would receive full
take-home pay and benefits for up to four years.
Quentin Young, national coordinator of
Physicians for a National Health Program, applauds the Just
Health Care plan in general and the proposed transition fund
in particular. "One of the byproducts of a rational
health system, it’s been learned the world over, is a
tremendous drop in administrative costs, which recovers money
that can be used for health care," says Young. "But
the down side of that is that thousands of clerical workers
and others will be laid off. The Labor Party is addressing the
security of those individuals, who are not, after all, the
reason for the health care system’s inadequacy."
NAUSEATING PROPOSALS
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The Pittsburgh LP signs up another member to
the Just Health Care Committee of a Million. Photo
©2000, Carol Lambiase |
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Young blasts the stance of the major party
candidates on health care. "It’s hard to read the Bush
and Gore proposals on health care, especially if you have a
tendency to nausea," he says. "I think we need to
castigate them not just for what they are saying, but for what
they’re not saying. They don’t say a word about the
corporate takeover of the health care system. In health,
treatment proceeds from diagnosis. The diagnosis with this
health care system is greedy profiteers. And the treatment is,
get rid of ’em!"
Neal Bisno, who represents health care workers
as vice president of District 1199P/Service Employees International
Union, describes the Just Health Care financing plan as
"a serious proposal with real numbers. It’s so easy for
people to oppose the single-payer approach by saying it’s
unworkable and it can’t be financed. The Labor Party is
answering that argument."
Bisno’s members, including RNs as well as
service and technical workers in hospitals and nursing homes,
are victims of the current health care system as both
consumers and providers of health care.
"Managed care was created to deal with
one issue —the perception of untenable increases in health
care costs," says Bisno. "They’ve structured this
system to essentially put health insurance companies in charge
of health care, exactly because insurance companies’
motivation is always to pay out as little as possible. That’s
how they make money."
Unfortunately, Bisno adds, neither Bush nor
Gore are addressing the fundamental crisis his members — and
the rest of us — are facing. "I think Gore’s all
about incrementalism. What politicians are very good at —
and Clinton has really perfected — is the ability to do
something very cosmetic and minor that leaves the impression
that they are really doing something about the issue." (See:
"Conversation with Neal
Bisno").
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Joyce
Miller. Photo ©2000, Michael
Kaufman
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Joyce Mills, a member of the California Nurses
Association, is now working full-time for the Labor Party in
the California Just Health Care Campaign. She notes that
"Every candidate is saying that they’re for ‘universal
health care.’ They have to say that to get elected. But what
does ‘universal health care’ mean? We want to wage a
battle to make sure that what it means is health care in the
interests of working people — nothing less."
— Laura
McClure
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Bob Wages gives PACE donation of
$10,000 to Just Health Care campaign. Photo ©2000, Michael
Kaufman
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Note: At the July 17 meeting of the Labor
Party’s Interim National Council, Bob Wages, executive vice
president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy
Workers union, presented the Labor Party with a $10,000 contribution from PACE’s Health and
Safety Education Fund to support the Just Health Care
campaign.
Next:
Here's How to Pay For It >
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