Oregon Activists Look to Grassroots Approach to Win Universal Health Care

http://labornotes.org/2012/05/oregon-activists-look-grassroots-approach-win-universal-health-care

Peter Shapiro May 14, 2012

With health care premiums rising three times faster than workers’ income, more and more unions have come to see the existing health care system as unsustainable, despite their best efforts at the bargaining table.

In Oregon, activists are responding by rejuvenating a dormant campaign to win a health care system that covers everyone—and pays for it by cutting out the insurance companies. The concept is called “single payer.”


Oregon activists are responding to relentlessly escalating health care premiums by rejuvenating a grassroots campaign to win a health care system that covers everyone. They're learning from Vermont campaigners who won landmark legislation last year. Photo: Vermont Workers Center.

This isn't the first time that Oregon activists have tried to win single payer. Ten years ago, they put an initiative on the ballot, but despite initially promising polls, the measure was trounced—victim of a flood of insurance company money and the sharp opposition of the Oregon AFL-CIO, which called it a threat to union health plans.

Times have changed.

FULL story at link.