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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- Unions, Wal-Mart, and Health CareAndrew D. Coates, MD Member Physicians for a National Health Program Dear Portside, [I wrote the following in response to a recent New York Times article "States Are Battling Wal-Mart Over Health Care" and submitted it to the local list of members of the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, a labor organization formed over 20 years ago in support of striking copper miners in New Mexico. The group has been consistently working to organize and effect real acts of labor solidarity ever since. I thought Portside readers might find it useful in light of David Bacon's article]: We all know we must come to grips with, and stand up to, and aim to thwart, derail and defeat this Wal-Mart juggernaut. It is grinding our communities down into miserable poverty, material and cultural poverty. We know it will take union power to pull Wal-Mart's tracks out from under it. Within this, I believe that our struggle for access to health care for all -- everybody in, nobody out -- can and should be a critical component. This NYT article shows something of the potential to press our cause. Crowning the article was a worth-a-thousand-words photo box: a young woman worker with a toddler-sized child under each arm, Wal-Mart parking lot and store sprawling out behind her. Caption: "Samantha Caizza, with children Izabella McLane, left, and Ilizah McLane, said that when Wal-Mart hired her at its Chehalis, Wash., store, it told her to contact the state for health coverage for her children." We learn in the article that Ms. Caizza was fired for "union activities." We understand why Samantha might get involved with "union activities" while working at Wal-Mart. From reading the article we admire her courage and hope she's found a better job. I have a suggestion. Imagine if we could link organizing efforts with a practical political campaign for health care reform -- then we might give Samantha a very real way to continue her union activity after departing Wal-Mart. This might also provide a larger practical way to reach out to the entire service sector, which increasingly faces the same health care meltdown. Most of all this kind effort might provide the real nourishment necessary to revive unionism back into its proper self: as a social movement for human dignity. When we consider that health insurance in America is employer-based, to raise the demand that access to health care be the same for all, regardless of employer or even whether employed, is to invoke working class independence. How many friends and relatives, how many of us, have chosen to stay in our present job because of its health benefits? As John Funicello put it to me recently, can you imagine the human creativity that would be unleashed if people knew their health care did not depend upon their employment, if they could seek a job they really want to work? The acute crisis in American health care means that this is not pie-in-the-sky talk. Based upon this article, consider the stage that is being set for such an effort -- it is the Wal-Mart executive who says, "You can't solve it for the 1.2 million associates if you can't solve it for the country." We can respond, hey listen up Wal-Mart!, we have practical plan to do just that: a single payer system which would cover all necessary medical care and all prescription drugs for everyone, reduce costs, improve quality, guarantee access, offer unlimited choice of provider and expand patient and physician autonomy. We know of no other proposal which can come close to doing any of these things, let alone all of them. Wal-Mart claims (in this article) to have spent in 2003 "about $1.3 billion of its $256 billion in revenue last year on employee health care to insure about 537,000 people." That is one-half of one percent of revenue and $2,421 per worker. Big deal! Consider that General Motors covered 1.2 million workers in 2002 at cost of $4.5 billion or two and half percent of revenue ($178 billion) and $3750 per worker. The Princeton economist Uwe Reinhardt called GM "a social insurance system that sells cars to finance itself." Where will we turn to defend the benefits of GM workers, practically and immediately? Health care is a social responsibility. Wal-Mart has been shifting the cost of its health care onto the government. Now that the Reagan Revolution has trickled down to the county level, a keen awareness of the social responsibility and the social cost to provide health care has dawned upon our local officials. Witness the recent op-ed piece on the cost of Medicaid and Albany County taxes. Earlier this year we saw the refusal of the Albany County Legislature to take a grant form Wal-Mart to subsidize vaccinations, calling upon the company to offer health insurance to its workers instead. We have openings to take our campaign to the local, state and federal government as well. (But first just one more tax cut for the rich -- Hillary and Chuck voted yes last week!) One of the founders of Physicians for a National Health Program, David Himmelstein, recently pointed out in an interview that a labor party was the precondition for national health insurance in every country that has it (... all of the other industrial nations). While such an organization may be the precondition for universal health care -- the struggle for a real labor party also requires demands like this one. The struggle for universal health care in America now emerges not only as a practical demand, not only as a principled one -- it is much more: a demand which will can strengthen the position of all workers in their individual as well as their collective struggles against their bosses. I believe the empowerment offered by universal health care could help derail the Wal-Mart juggernaut, which feeds upon our economic and social desperation as it leads the "race to the bottom." To those who say that because unions have better benefits to offer, benefits which remain a key inducement to join them, it is therefore 'not yet' time to advocate for universal health care, I would propose: 1. Let us take health benefits off the bargaining table. Get back to fighting for better wages and working conditions. Lets make union life a better life, overall. 2. Workers will be more likely to join a movement that demands justice for all -- and shows how to fight for it, practically. 3. If all necessary medical care were provided by a single payer system then there would be nothing to prevent unions from offering social insurance to workers, like maternity and paternity leave, tuition benefits, child-care, and so on, in addition to those elective medical and dental treatments not covered by the national plan. We should look upon this fight with confidence and creativity. Without this struggle, health care in America will only get worse. Yet I have an inkling that when we stand up to the health care monopolies, with the temerity to suggest that profiteering from human illness represents a crime against humanity, we will be on our way to breaking one of the chains that holds us down. In solidarity, Andrew D. Coates, MD member Physicians for a National Health Program _______________________________________________________ portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. It aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left. For answers to frequently asked questions: <http://www.portside.org/faq> To subscribe, unsubscribe or change settings: <http://lists.portside.org/mailman/listinfo/portside> To submit material, paste into an email and send to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> (postings are moderated) For assistance with your account: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To search the portside archive: <http://people-link5.inch.com/pipermail/portside/> www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@listserv.aol.com/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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