JUST HEALTHCARE PANEL
Labor Party Convention, Friday, July 26, 2002

Moderator Neil Bisno of the Pennsylvania Healthcare Union began the panel by summarizing the situation of his union in Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Healthcare Union, at 18,000 members, is the fastest growing nurses union in Pennsylvania. Their union has struggled against the takeover and closings of hospitals by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center throughout the Pittsburgh area. UPMC is a non-profit company with $63 million in cash holdings. They currently own 3 of every five hospital bed in the Pittsburgh area.

The Pennsylvania Healthcare Union recently celebrated a victory of keeping Alacopa Hospital a community hospital. Alacopa has been a community hospital since the 1950s and UPMC recently threatened to close it. 1199 was able to fight and keep Alacopa a community hospital.

Claudia Fegan, Directory of Cook County (Chicago) Ambulatory Care Centers, spoke about a healthcare system that isn't working. She talked about the choices that families are forced to make every day. Families must choose whether or not to go to the doctor. They must choose to stay in a job to keep their benefits. They must choose to make their medications last b/c they cannot afford to adequately maintain their treatments. She concluded by

Sid Wolfe, Director of Public Citizen Health Research Group followed Claudia. He spoke of the vast research they have found regarding pharmaceutical companies and hospital practices. One in five hospitals have violated the law against dumping patients who have no health insurance. The pharmaceutical companies had a $37 million profit in 2001. They spent between 17 and 18 billion on marketing, much of which is misleading. Wolfe talked about these companies bribing doctors and the criminal hotline he set up for doctors to report this practice. Public Citizen successfully took two pharmaceutical companies to court for this.

In addressing the current political climate, Wolfe affirmed that the proposals on Capitol Hill would not work without price controls of prescription drugs. He also addressed the fear that many reason against a single payer system. They lament that the bureaucracy of national health insurance would be too large. The reality is the current bureaucracy of the insurance companies is much more unwieldy.

Dean Baker spoke about his experience briefing unions, LP leaders making Just Healthcare foolproof. He broke down the JHC payment into three parts. 3.3% tax on wages to compensate workers for their heathcare. Another third will increase taxes by 5% for people making more than $200,000/year. The last third will be a 25 cent tax on every one hundred dollars of trade.

Dr. Quentin Young, current president of Physicians for a National Health Program and past president of the Public Health Association. He emphasized the criminal activities of hospitals - $350 million in fines have been paid for violations. He said:

"I want to talk to you about the criminality of the present health system. The criminality of the whole corporate system is becoming news. But the "Enron-ization" of the health system has been going on long before today's headlines.

We have all the resources we need to implement Just Healthcare. We already spend twice as much as the next country for health care. We have a vast health care workforce, huge numbers of hospitals and technology. We could literally have a decent health system tomorrow, instead of one that is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy. We stand alone in the world in putting the profit motive ahead of patient care.

Our slogan is: "Everybody in, nobody out!" "Everybody in" is a political statement- we are going to have a national, universal, single-payer health plan. "Nobody out" is a moral statement; we believe that no one should be excluded."

Joyce Mills of the California Nurses Association said the fight for healthcare is a fundamental fight for justice. She talked about the history of being divided to address different parts of the healthcare system and that a complete approach is lacking. The California Nurses Association has traveled around the state education nurses on the Just Healthcare Campaign while simultaneously passing the first legislation in the nation mandating a reasonable nurse to patient ration. They have used these two campaigns to also address a reasonable nurse to patient ratio. She said:

"The concept of health care as a business, where the first order of business is profits for a few, must be rejected. We need Just Healthcare.

Organized working people are the muscle on the skeleton of reform. Working people have fought for just healthcare for the better part of the last century. What has happened to health care in this country is one of the best examples of the death of the social contract. As working people we need to lead with a vision of Just Health Care. We need to place broad, structural health reform back on the agenda in this country.

When you restrict beds, you restrict nurses. We've uncovered morbidity bonuses in California, where doctors are rewarded when they deny coverage. Our best and only chance of achieving reform lies with us here in this room. Our experience is that every time we take the Just Health Care campaign to the American people, it wins. The question is not can we afford to reform the health care system, the question is can we afford not to."