For Unions, Labor Day Is Health Care Rally Day

By Steven Greenhouse

The nation’s labor unions seem to be approaching this Labor Day more as Health Reform Lobbying Day than as a traditional holiday.

With President Obama scheduled to speak at a union-sponsored picnic in Cincinnati on Monday, labor advocates are spending the weekend painting and printing signs in support of a health care overhaul. That includes labor’s pet provision: the public-insurance option. Thirty thousand union members are expected at the picnic.

Elsewhere Monday, the Greater Boston Labor Council plans to turn its annual labor breakfast into not just a memorial for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, but a mobilization for his lifelong cause: universal health coverage. Unions expect thousands of demonstrators at the breakfast-cum-rally.

Meanwhile, the Service Employees International Union is sponsoring “Let’s Get It Done” Labor Day health care demonstrations in Philadelphia; Pittsburgh; Texarkana, Ark.; Rapid City, S.D.; and several other cities. But the union also wants its members to save some energy for Tuesday and Wednesday, when it hopes they will deluge Capitol Hill with thousands of phone calls.

The unions want not only for wavering Democrats to stand by the health overhaul, but they are also pushing President Obama to sell his health plan more vigorously. “It’s important for him to get his message out across the country,” said John Sweeney, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. president.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

B. Mull September 5, 2009 · 3:39 pm

I will never stop fighting for the working poor. The Massachusetts experience shows that subsidies will prove inadequate in the face of rising health costs. And Massachusetts is a high-income state with a competitive insurance market! Imagine what low-income workers in rural areas will face. They will have to buy insurance they can’t afford or pay a penalty they can’t afford. That is exactly what Obama said he wouldn’t do in the debate. Even workers who have insurance now will suffer under this health plan. As it stands people are stuck in jobs they don’t like because they don’t want to be uninsured. Imagine if you couldn’t *afford* to be uninsured because the government would punish you. Imagine living in fear that your employer will cut benefits and you’ll be forced into that untouchable caste. Obama wants workers to go down in defeat so he doesn’t have to. No way.

Raymond L. Juneau September 5, 2009 · 11:04 pm

It’s time for Obama to step up to the plate and deliver. Debate time is over, it’s quite obvious that the right wing nuts are stalling for time and time is the enemy of health care reform. The citizen’s of this country need healthcare reform and the only option is a public option! That will get rid of the racketeers in the health insurance industry. Madoff should be in charge of that racket! This country already has public health care. The postal workers, teachers, police, firemen, military, federal government workers, state government workers, local government workers, plus medicare and the V.A. that provides health care for our veterans! Everyone gets health care, or the taxpayer should demand that no one gets health care from the taxpayer, PERIOD! whiteagle38

Raymond L. Juneau September 5, 2009 · 11:20 pm

Sen. Snowe can take that trigger plan and shove it! We don’t need a trigger, a co-op or anything else that caters to the health insurance industry. Sell me auto insurance, life insurance, accident insurance or property insurance. Health insurance is a racket dreamed up by the insurance company’s. They don’t insure old people, sick people or folks with pre-existing conditions. I thought we had racketeering laws on our books. The right wingers are stuffing their pockets with money from the insurance company’s along with the so called “blue dogs”. No more stalling or debates, step up and get it done. A public option is the only way to go, or the racketeers from the insurance company’s will still have control of who gets insured and who gets what treatment, and how long you can stay in the hospital. After all, if you stay more than 24 hours you cost the insurance company’s money! Public option, get it done! whiteagle38

anna September 6, 2009 · 1:09 am

“The nation’s labor unions seem to be approaching this Labor Day more as Health Reform Lobbying Day than as a traditional holiday.”
“Holiday” implies celebration. With labor destroyed decades ago, Americans have nothing to celebrate. Instead of “celebrating” by overeating, shouldn’t Americans hit the streets? Or their love of slavery is eternal? A truly moronic, totally enslaved nation.
BTW, NYT, isn’t it about time to have a permanent everyday Labor section?

Jay September 6, 2009 · 2:28 am

Unions and Central Labor Councils across the nation have endorsed single payer/Medicare for All (H.R. 676) as the real answer to health care reform that we need as a nation. Why aren’t unions standing up for the only reform that we know will work?

We all agree it is the very best policy, and the only one that will effectively reduce health care costs while covering everyone from cradle to grave, and give completely free choice of doctor and facility to all. Then labor could get on with the real task of standing up for real wages and progress for the American family, instead of apologizing for wage stagnation as the health care industry sucks all workers dry and eliminates the futures for our children.

Labor needs to stand strong for real reform – single payer/Medicare for All.

anna September 6, 2009 · 9:05 am

Frankly, NYT, it’s embarrassing. You have countless blogs, some totally absurd, but you don’t have a section dedicated to labor, in a country where people’s life is limited to “labor” only .
OK, maybe NYT perceives its role as complementary – people work, work, work, so we’ll give them description of something else.

kevin September 6, 2009 · 10:19 am

I love you guys – all of you moaning and groaning about getting someone else to pay for your responsibilities. I would be willing to bet that almost every union member has or has available health insurance – most, if not all, is paid for by their employer. This is nothing more than attempt by unions to gain more political power – not political power for the members but for the union elite. Here’s an idea – require everyone to have insurance and have everyone buy it on their own – no subsidies, no give-aways, no extra taxes on those that produce for those that don’t. Everyone fends for themselves and figures out how to pay for it themselves. It would be interesting to see how many of you would want single payer under that scenario!

blacklight September 6, 2009 · 12:07 pm

kevin: “Here’s an idea – require everyone to have insurance and have everyone buy it on their own – no subsidies, no give-aways, no extra taxes on those that produce for those that don’t. Everyone fends for themselves and figures out how to pay for it themselves. It would be interesting to see how many of you would want single payer under that scenario!”

I hope that you get to have for yourself the option that you want. I’ll love kicking back, sipping a Gatorade at the beach and under the sun while you and your family pay quickly increasing premiums for less and less coverage as each year rolls by. I also hope that your insurance company rescinds your coverage at the time you most need it and/or deny to you over an alleged pre-condition. When this happens to you, don’t beg us for sympathy. You won’t get any. Just go bankrupt and go bankrupt quietly – Don’t bore us with your tears.

Partha Sur September 6, 2009 · 5:59 pm

The main cause of higher health insurance costs and high hospital costs is that in any local market only a handful of insurance companies and hospital groups operate thus exercising a MONOPOLY which allows them to hold their customers totally captive to their demands. First, this lunacy needs to be corrected in the final bill. One way would be to introduce a federal public option which operates in ALL states to compete with the private plans (a la Medibank in Australia). But this public plan must be accessible to ALL – not just the uninsured to be effective in reducing insurance costs. In its present form the Public Plan will not offer much competition to the Private Insurance companies to reduce costs, since they are DESIGNED TO OPERATE IN DIFFERENT MARKETS (i.e. uninsured vs. insured by employer). Boeing does not compete with GM. So it is difficult to justify the Republican and Blue Dog Democrat fear and anger about the Public Option. Breaking the monopoly of health insurance companies and hospital groups is the magic bullet to bring down insurance costs – the Public Option is only an alternative but indirect way of doing this. Therefore the crucial remedy of changing the State laws UNIFORMLY across ALL states to allow OPEN UNRESTRICTED COMPETITION among health insurance companies and hospital groups in any geographical area must be implemented on day one.
Second, insurance companies must be required (from day one) to charge the same premium for customers irrespective of pre-existing conditions, age and gender with rescission outlawed. Also there has to be a reasonable cap on yearly deductibles and no lifetime limits from day one. In addition, a minimum standard list of coverage must be specified clearly and explicitly by ALL private insurance companies and must be offered uniformly across ALL states. This can be based on Medicare coverage currently allowed. These regulatory rules can be best implemented through an exchange which ALL health insurance companies must be required to operate through. The only way an insurance company can cope with this is to increase operating efficiency, reduce marketing and advertising costs and enroll more customers. Without these changes and adjustments their premiums will increase to such high values (to satisfy Wall Street) that they will continue to lose their customer base (as they are all doing now as baby boomers move into Medicare and employers drop coverage due to high cost) faster and eventually go out of business when their customer base falls below a critical level. Even if NOTHING in the current health care system is changed the health insurance companies will continue to die a slow death because of this fact. That is why they are supporting Obama to mandate everyone to purchase health insurance – the insurance companies are currently on death row. They desperately need this stay in execution from Obama. But an individual mandate is not practical (without deficit busting subsidies) when the median income in US is $47,000 and average family health insurance premium is about $14,000 per annum and likely to rise steadily while the median income will not. The simple fact of life in USA at present is that the average family does not earn enough (and never will) to afford private health insurance coverage – without employer intervention. So you see if you offered the following proposition to the Health Insurance companies – “We will enforce an employer and individual mandate only if you also accept a robust Public Option” they will accept this deal. Why? The Public Option (in its current restricted form) will not kill private insurance companies in USA (Medibank has not killed the private insurance sector in Australia even after 30 years – private insurance holds a steady 45% of the market share there). But a lack of universal coverage definitely will! That is why they “support” health care reform. Therefore as a first phase of health reform this is all you need to do in the final Bill. In the next phase of health care overhaul (if it ever takes place) CHANGE THE FEE-FOR-SERVICE MODEL TO A FIXED PAYMENT SYSTEM and also address tort reform. That is all! This will not take 1000 pages to specify.

KathySuf September 6, 2009 · 7:37 pm

//therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/time-to-crack-obamas-acorn/
RBO
Time to crack Obama’s ACORN (Repost) (Updated 2x)
September 26, 2008 by Procrustes
Presumptive presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.)’s “most questionable tie is to a leftist organization called ACORN,” NancyA reported July 5, 2008, at No Quarter.
His connection to this group begins with a woman named Madeleine Talbot. She embraced Obama and taught him the ropes. He remained a part of this group’s training cadre. Obama taught leadership conferences for the group while working for Miner, Barnhill & Galland. His connections don’t end there. Obama actively sought and received the endorsement by ACORN for his local campaigns. He has now done the same in his bid for the USA presidency.
Between 1993 and 2001, while Obama served on the board of directors of the Woods Fund of Chicago, ACORN, a “left wing voter registration group and to a partnership for constructing low income housing,” was the recipient of Woods Fund grant money.
Should Sen. Obama be elected to the presidency, John Fund wrote July 12, 2008, in the Wall Street Journal, “he would become not just the head of the Democratic Party but also the inspiration for a large number of liberal groups” like ACORN.
“Some of them would no doubt lobby him to hand out taxpayer grants and contracts for their nonpolitical ‘community’ efforts,” Fund wrote.
Indeed, Mr. Obama has extensive connections with the granddaddy of activist groups, Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten millions in government grants for its low-income housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases.
Acorn’s political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its “voter education” arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall — despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.
The housing bill now before Congress would set up a slush fund for community organizations such as Acorn. But Acorn has gone quiet in its lobbying for the bill this week with the news that one of its employees — [Dale Rathke,] the brother of Acorn founder Wade Rathke — had stolen nearly $1 million from the group. Mr. Rathke decided not to alert law enforcement or the organization’s board, and kept his brother employed at Acorn until last month. “Is this the kind of group we want getting taxpayer money?” asks Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.)
In the April 29, 2008, Wall Street Journal, Fund wrote that Barack Obama came to Chicago “as a community organizer in the 1980s and quickly developed a name for himself as a litigator in voting cases.”
IN 1995, THEN GOP GOV. JIM EDGAR REFUSED TO IMPLEMENT THE FEDERAL “MOTOR VOTER” LAW. ALLOWING VOTERS TO REGISTER USING ONLY A POSTCARD AND BLOCKING THE STATE FROM CULLING VOTER ROLLS, HE ARGUED, COULD INVITE FRAUD. MR. OBAMA SUED ON BEHALF OF THE ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY ORGANIZATIONS FOR REFORM NOW, AND WON. ACORN LATER INVITED MR. OBAMA TO HELP TRAIN ITS STAFF; […]
Acorn’s efforts to register voters have been scandal-prone. St. Louis, Mo., officials found that in 2006 over 1,000 addresses listed on its registrations didn’t exist. “We met twice with Acorn before their drive, but our requests completely fell by the wayside,” said Democrat Matt Potter, the city’s deputy elections director. Later, federal authorities indicted eight of the group’s local workers. One of the eight pleaded guilty last month.
In Seattle, local officials invalidated 1,762 Acorn registrations. Felony charges were filed against seven of its workers, some of whom have criminal records. Prosecutors say Acorn’s oversight of its workers was virtually nonexistent. To avoid prosecution, Acorn agreed to pay $25,000 in restitution.
Despite this record – and polls that show clear majorities of blacks and Hispanics back voter ID laws – Mr. Obama continues to back Acorn. They both joined briefs urging the Supreme Court to overturn Indiana’s law.
In his July 12, 2008, article Fund commented that, due to the “leading role” ACORN, and “other liberal groups”, may play in electing Obama, these groups “deserve a closer look now, before their influence and possibly their clout grow dramatically after the November election.”

anna September 6, 2009 · 7:46 pm

“The main cause of higher health insurance costs and high hospital costs is that in any local market only a handful of insurance companies ..”#9

And the reason we need insurance companies at all … is?
I think I can quite happily live without corporate bureaucrats
between me and may doctor.

jck September 7, 2009 · 9:01 am

Will the Unions support a health reform bill which will cost them money out of their own paychecks to cover the uninsured?Or will they only support it if others have to pay the bill?Where is the Union support for medical malpractice and tort reform which would reduce costs dramatically with no decrease in quality of care?

blacklight September 7, 2009 · 10:31 am

jck: “Where is the Union support for medical malpractice and tort reform which would reduce costs dramatically with no decrease in quality of care?”

You are pulling these anticipated dramatically reduced costs out of your whitebread Republican butt. The insurance companies will simply pocket the difference and if they are too dumb to pick up the free money and line their pockets, the health care providers will do it. Whatever cost savings are generated through medical malpractice and tort reform will not get to the consumers. This is how the real world works, boy.

I take it that you pulled your claim that the quality of medical care will not decrease out of the same area of your body that you pulled your first claim.

anna September 7, 2009 · 11:42 am

HAPPY LABOR DAY

anna September 7, 2009 · 11:47 am

Well, KathySuf,#10
Didn’t they tell you that there is a difference between propaganda (you favorite website) and reliable information (not there)?

Thelma September 8, 2009 · 11:20 am

Obama has again lied in his speech on Monday. There are other health care proposals out there that have been proposed by the Republicans. He will not even consider them!!

Sam September 8, 2009 · 12:32 pm

Thelma — Can you share the Republican proposals with us? I don’t recall hearing anything from them except “death panels” and “no.”

Franky Lamouche September 8, 2009 · 5:28 pm

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Life without health is like a shell without seed. It may be time for another revolution.