take a break for health care

Talking Points

The Problem

• Health care insurance costs are skyrocketing by as much as 16 percent a year. It has led many employers to demand that employees pay a larger share of their premiums and higher deductibles and co-payments.
• For workers without a union, these changes are made unilaterally. For workers with a union, it has made contract negotiations over health care extremely difficult. (Cite recent health care cost shifting struggles at GE, Verizon, St. Gobain, Berkshire Gas, grocery stores, etc.)
• Higher costs are also causing the number of uninsured families to increase. Many employers are dropping insurance coverage or pricing it so high that employees can’t afford it.
• At the same time, because of managed care and the fiscal crisis that most state governments are experiencing, health care services are being cut.
• As a result, working people are being asked to pay more for less health care.

The Solution

• Expanding Medicare (the federal health insurance program for people over 65) is the best way to control costs and provide universal coverage. It would also help to protect and improve the current insurance program for seniors.
• Medicare is efficient. Currently about 30 percent of every health care dollar pays for paperwork, bureaucratic red tape and insurance company profits. Medicare delivers the same service with less than 5 percent overhead.
• Medicare can control costs by negotiating deep discounts with doctors and hospitals. That’s how they keep drug prices low in Canada.
• Without the chaos of more than a thousand private insurance companies working through a million employers to provide care, governments can set and enforce overall spending limits and slow the increase in costs.

The Plan

• Winning a major change like “Medicare for All” involves taking on very powerful special interest groups.
• Those special interest groups that profit from the current system are already attacking the existing Medicare program. They will certainly oppose any expansion of benefits for working people.
• It will take increased membership involvement and a broad grassroots movement to achieve health care reform that provides everyone with access to secure, affordable health care.
• Backed by unions and community groups, Jobs with Justice is linking struggles against cost shifting and cuts in health care services to help build a larger movement for reform.
• Please vote to express your opinion about a “Medicare for All” insurance solution and consider taking a pledge to become involved in the fight for real health care reform. More information about health care reform is on the educational leaflet.