Will Labor Lead? - A Report from the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer

“Great leaders aren’t born, they’re cornered,” paraphrased Joe Jurczak from National Nurses United during the opening of the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer National Meeting. He was imploring labor, the left, and anyone who gives a damn about the future of this country to pressure President Obama to put workers before Wall Street and big insurance. He, like many of us, had great hopes for Obama. But after the bailouts, and after the passage of the ACA--which continues to put for-profit insurance corporations in the driver seat of our national health care system--it is clear that this is one leader who will have to be cornered.

The meet-up was held in Washington, DC over a hot and humid June weekend. Beginning symbolically at the National AFL-CIO office, just blocks from the White House, the purpose of the meeting was to reevaluate goals and messaging for the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer. The Labor Campaign’s purpose: To corner the labor movement and convince them that labor must lead on this issue. Without labor’s lead single-payer will never happen, because outside of labor is there any single movement that can bring to bear the political pressure necessary to corner a President?

To this end we have had much success. The National AFL-CIO has adopted a resolution supporting single-payer health care reform. They are also supporting the Sanders/McDermontt Health Security Act of 2011 (S703/HR1200), a single-payer bill in the Senate. The AFL has even made a financial contribution to the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer. Every year more international unions are adding their voices to the growing movement. But there is a long way to go.

There is no more important domestic issue. Just in terms of dollars spent it is the biggest issue of our times. Here in Maine we spend 19% of our Gross State Product, over $6500 per person, on health care every year. To put that in perspective consider that most nations spend between $3000 and $4000 per person. And our per person annual income in Maine is only around $29k.

Despite the tremendous resources we pour into the health care system, 10% of our population in Maine is uninsured. Nationally the numbers are even more grim. This leads inevitably to inadequate care or worse, no care at all. Daily Americans are dying that could have been saved--if they could have afforded the care they needed. In fact, the US ranks last among industrialized countries in deaths that could have been prevented with access to timely and effective health care.

Yet, our current national dialog centers on tearing apart the few social insurance programs we have. We are no longer discussing ways to insure everybody, we are talking about dismantling Medicare and gutting Medicaid. It is justified by fiscal crisis. We are told that these programs are too big to afford... whereas Wall Street is too big fail! Billion dollar bailouts for corporate banks and investment houses made possible on the backs of working people.

Here is an idea: make the rich pay their fair share! The Labor Campaign for Single Payer advocates the "high road solution" to these unprecedented attacks on the well-being and security of workers everywhere: solve the health care crisis by transferring resources from military expenditures and corporate welfare to programs benefiting working people. In particular, we can strengthen Medicare by expanding it to everyone in America. The entire budget deficit would disappear if per capita health care costs in the United States were the same as in any other industrialized country with a national health care system.

These are difficult times. The most difficult. With at least two wars abroad, a continuing recession, and a President who has thrown his arms around Wall Street and the insurance industry, single-payer health care seems a long shot at best. But, can we afford to ignore single-payer because it is “politically unfeasible”?

It is our job to corner the labor movement, and pin down the progressives, to build the momentum we need to get our policy leaders to stop ignoring us in favor of big insurance or in the name of political expediency. We need to reach out to the small business owner, whether progressive, conservative, or a-political. We need to find the common ground that all of us stand on. We have to each agree that health care is a human right, and we have to enact sweeping health care reform to achieve an universal, equitable, affordable and accountable system that serves all of us well. It is up to us. We cannot fail.