AFL-CIO September Union Convention might not back healthcare bill proposed by Congress ....

even if it includes a public option! And if the bill coming out of the House/Senate conference doesn't include a public option, the chances of the AFL-CIO backing the health care insurance bill are probably somewhere between none and zero.

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AFL-CIO convention may feature showdown over health care
By Mark Gruenberg
Workday Minnesota
August 17, 2009

WASHINGTON - With one month to go before September’s national AFL-CIO Convention in Pittsburgh, the biggest floor fight there may be over health care. And that floor fight, in turn, could affect the whole health care battle on Capitol Hill and nationally.
That’s because while the federation has supported and actively campaigned for legislation based on the principles of universality, cost controls, choosing your own doctor and a government-run alternative to the insurance companies, 552 labor bodies -- from international unions down to local councils -- want to go in a different direction: A government-run single-payer Medicare-like system.

So if the AFL-CIO yanks its support for legislation being considered in Congress, and backed by Democratic President Barack Obama, that legislation could sink.

As of Aug. 10, four days before the resolutions deadline, single-payer health care coverage advocates had sent 40 draft resolutions backing the bill (HR 676, S 703) to the AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer’s office. One was from the California School Employees Association, a union that sits on the AFL-CIO Executive Council.

While dozens of union groups back single-payer, the Executive Council has not -- so far. That may change, a CSEA council rep previously told Press Associates.

Backers include the Steelworkers, CSEA, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and more than a dozen other AFL-CIO unions. Several, but not those three, call single-payer one of several alternative roads to health care reform.


The resolutions are blunt, with a model version, from Troy, N.Y., blasting the health insurance companies. The Troy CLC’s resolution not only supports the single-payer bill by long-time Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., but bars the AFL-CIO from taking a fall-back stand in favor of a “public option” in a wider health care reform plan.

Please read the complete article at:

http://www.workdayminnesota.org/index.php?news_6_4133

I'm sorry but there isn't going to be a single payer plan--it was never in the cards at this time. The best we can hope for is a public option. There are not enough votes in house or senate for a medicare single payer system.

Not only we are not being given Medicare for all (HR676 and S703), but we are being denied to opportunity to have to right to choose Medicare as our public option. They are going to give us co-ops, a version of managed care run by the insurance industry.

Would a public option diminish a union's bargaining power? Could it possibly cause a decrease in benefits? I do not understand why GM was complaining about how much employee health benefits were bleeding them dry when they wanted a bailout, but they and so many corporations are quiet about this political matter.

Here is an excellent interview with Leo Gerard, President of United Steel Workers on Single Payer:

USW President Supports Single Payer Healthcare

"I think we should fight for single-payer health care, fight for a principled position." That was the statement made today by Leo Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers (USW), in an exclusive interview with The Real News Network. Gerard made the statement in the context of discussing the healthcare reform effort currently underway in Washington.

Born and raised in Canada, where his adult children still live, Gerard is in a unique position to comment on the healthcare struggle now going on in the U.S. The interview was conducted in Gerard's office at USW headquarters in Pittsburgh.

http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/news_releases/2009-07-08

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w59jJtaMwUk

Single payer is the best way to go. Let the people and their representatives decide what we as a nation can afford for health care.

At least this will be some pressure in the right direction. Will we get single payer? Probably not. But this will remind politicians that a public option, not co-ops are the compromise.

Co-ops are a cop-out.

"While dozens of union groups back single-payer, the Executive Council has not"

And most of those same unions back health care reform

Workers 'Becoming Backbone' of Health Care Reform Effort

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It would be a first step to putting American Workers on a level playing field with the rest of the World.
As long as manufacturing has to shoulder the burden for Health Care, LABOR will start out in a deep hole when competing against countries with Universal coverage.

I cannot fathom WHY Obama INSISTS that Employer Provided Health Insurance MUST be protected.

Employers that provide health insurance should find their costs go down in cases where the spouses of their employees that are also employed elsewhere would also pay into the plan.

Employers that provide health insurance but some of their competitors don't would have that disadvantage eliminated.

Local government and school employers would lower their health care costs when employed spouses of those employees are paying into the plan instead of opting out of their employer's health coverage. Which should lower local property and income taxes.

But this would only work imo under a Single Payer plan.

A study also indicated that a Single Payer plane would result in over 3 million new jobs.

At least then it will still be on the table. If it passes without a good public option it will accomplish nothing but give the illusion that the situation was handled.