Wouldn't an alliance among labor unions re: health care make sense?

[nannah]

I think labor unions are the logical power to take on the health "insurance" industry. Unions carry the burden of the health "insurance" industry's unending greed and must always negotiate the huge cost of insurance into their labor contracts. Freeing American workers from carrying the burden of health insurance on their wage requirements would clarify labor costs and change hiring practices caused by the high cost of employee health insurance.

As John Edwards is aligned with labor issues, this seems an optimum moment to articulate and develop such an alliance to focus on alternatives that will relieve our current health care crisis (personally i believe in taxpayer supported, single payer health care).

As shown in Sicko and experienced by the multitude of families whose loved one died due to insurance industry decisions, the exorbitant cost of health insurance doesn't even buy the protection it promises.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

1. You know, that's a great suggestion. This is the moment for moving this idea forward. nt

[nannah]

2. i'm hopeful someone here may be in a position to help.

I've thought about this for a while. I am a union member and a social worker who helps people access heath care when they have no health insurance.

[papau]

3. I agree - but the elected to Congress crowd won't pass single payer - so Edwards/Hillary is best we

can get -

and it appears we will not get even that

Not only no mandate - but my gut, based on past Obama moves to bring GOPers on board, says the the path to single payer that Edwards/Hillary have of a Medicare like option will be dropped by a very sad Obama who tells us he had to drop it to get GOP support.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

4. Obama brings GOPers on board? That's unacceptable to me. nt

[papau]

5. early on he touted his "bipartisan" legislation that married a corporate tax cut to a 20 million inc

in a State Department effort that had less than 10 million - it showed he could work with the GOP to get things passed - that fact is no longer up on his site.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. If this is true, we need to make sure he doesn't get the nomination....

We need to start telling people. To me, that is a curse word, GOP. With all that this country suffered, we do NOT need to incorporate any Republicans for ANYTHING. Not until we reverse the damage they did to our country and people.

[papau]

11. It was easy last year to show this via O's own site as it bragged about it - but below

I pull it together as the Obama site was been "cleaned". Here are the two bills in question - he works with GOP to get a increase from 8 million to 25 million for small arms destruction around the world, and in return joins a promote coal bill that gives tax breaks to corporations.


Step 1:
http://www.globalsolutions.org/in_the_beltway/lugar_obama_bill_seeks_secure_weapons

The “Conventional Arms Disarmament Act of 2005” (Title II of S.1949), commonly referred to as the Lugar-Obama initiative, was introduced in November 2005 and proposes to restructure small arms destruction operations within the U.S. government.

Cosmetically, the bill renames PM/WRA as the Office of Conventional Arms Threat Reduction, and joins all conventional weapons stockpile security and destruction programs within the U.S. government under one office. More substantially, the bill authorizes $20 million dollars (later 25 million) of NADR funding to be specifically earmarked for small arms destruction. However, unless budget requests raise the level of total NADR funding to compensate for the Lugar-Obama earmark, the increase in small arms destruction would have to be funded from the coffers of other NADR-funded programs.

Step 2

Senators Obama and Bunning Introduce Legislation to Expand Coal Use

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Senators Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) today announced that they have introduced S.3325, the "Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act of 2006." Joining this bipartisan legislation as original co-sponsors are Senators Conrad Burns (R-MT); Richard Lugar (R-IN); Mark Pryor (D-AR); and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). This comprehensive piece of legislation creates tax incentives for coal-to-liquids (CTL) technology and the construction of CTL plants. If passed, this legislation will help create the infrastructure needed to make CTL a viable energy resource throughout America......Tax Incentives for Investment and Production...Investment Tax Credit and Expensing - Expands 20% tax credit for CTL plants (including the infrastructure needed to capture, transport and sequester carbon) capped at $200 million a plant and limited to 10 plants. Provides a similar provision for expensing these investments, but does not allow double dipping....Fuel Excise Tax Extension for CTL - Extends the fuel tax credit for CTL products from 2009 (From SAFETEA-LU) until January 1, 2020.

[nannah]

7. The question is, wouldn't an alliance among labor unions working

toward health care reform make sense? and who can begin this dialogue?

[WeCanWorkItOut]

8. It's a very good idea. Unfortunately, for-profit hospitals and powerful doctors' groups are also

part of the problem.

I'm glad you brought this up and are talking about how labor
is suffering from our heavy health costs.

A fairly big part of that, however, is due to inflation in hospital and doctors' costs.
In fact, they are going up so fast right now that even if we did have universal health care,
the gains would be wiped out after just a few years, as I believe the learned
Arnold Relman pointed out not too long ago.

The problem is, this important aspect of the problem is rarely heard. It's my impression that
Arnold Relman (former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine) is almost a lone voice here,
along with Paul Krugman just occasionally. It seems to make people uncomfortable.
But if the unions really want to cope with the damage our huge health costs are causing
to our economy and our people, they will have to deal with the whole problem.

[treestar]

9. Stop the negativity

The health care industry has no more "unending greed" than any other industry. Everyone wants to make a living. Why make blanket statements insulting all the doctors and nurses and insurance clerks, etc. out there?

Argue that national health insurance will prove they are needed and necessary and valuable people will go much further than accusing them of greed.

The health insurance industry employs multitudes. These are the people fighting national health insurance, because they think they won't be valued. Convince them they will be instead of confirming their fears.

[nannah]

10. i put quotation marks around the word "insurance" following the word health

for the express purpose of separating the concept of "insurance" from the reality of care.

i am not denigrating the services of any of the health care industry. Businesses that deliver health care are not in the same business as those that sell and administer health "insurance".

while the line staff of the health "insurance" industry is doing the bidding of their bosses, the industry as a whole has a conflict built into the statutes under which it is incorporated. in publicly held corporations, their responsibility, under the law, is to provide profit to their share holders. it is the business of the health insurance corporations to provide a profit to their shareholders; it is not the business of the health insurance industry to provide health care, when they are doing that they are losing money.