AFL-CIO Convention Endorses Single Payer Healthcare

AFL-CIO Convention Endorses Single Payer Healthcare

AFL-CIO Convention Endorses Single Payer Healthcare

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.   The AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor
federation representing 11.5 million workers in 57 international and
national unions, has endorsed a single payer health care system as the
best way to guarantee healthcare to everyone.  The unanimous vote in favor
of Convention Resolution 34, The Social Insurance Model for Health Care
Reform, came immediately after President Obama had addressed the
Convention last Tuesday.

The resolution states:  "The experience of Medicare (and of nearly every
other industrialized country) shows the most cost effective and equitable
way to provide quality healthcare is through a single-payer system."  It
continues:  "We reiterate our longstanding call for congressional leaders
to unite behind such a plan."

Resolution 34 singles out HR 676 as one of a number of single-payer bills
introduced in Congress and states:  "The single-payer approach is one the
AFL-CIO supports and that merits dedicated congressional support and
enactment."  The Resolution concludes by stating:  "Whatever the outcome
of the current debate over health care reform in the 111th Congress, the
task of establishing health care as a human right, not a privilege, will
still lay before us."

The Convention adopted Resolution 34 after a thirty minute debate in which
12 delegates spoke in favor of the resolution and a number of delegates
who wished to speak were still standing at the four floor microphones when
the time allotted to debate ran out.  No one spoke against the resolution.

Those who spoke for the single payer resolution included three members of
the AFL-CIO Executive Council, the Presidents of two state AFL-CIO
federations, four Presidents or Executive Officers of Central Labor
Councils, a high ranking official of the AFT who was chosen to speak in
favor of the resolution by the AFT caucus and delegates from AFSCME and
ILWU.

Rich Trumka, in his speech to the delegates immediately after being
elected President of the AFL-CIO the following day, reiterated his support
for single payer healthcare telling the delegates:  "Now, I know that a
lot of us would prefer a single payer plan.  I sure would."

Over 70 resolutions, an unprecedented number, were submitted to the
Convention calling on the AFL-CIO to endorse single payer healthcare.
More than 575 labor organizations, including 136 Central Labor Councils,
22 international and national unions, and 39 state AFL-CIO's have endorsed
HR 676, single payer legislation which has 87 sponsors in the House of
Representatives.   

Distributed by:
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care--HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
09/17/09