"This crisis fundamentally distorts the ability of all workers to survive in today's predatory economic environment.  Union contracts no longer adequately stand between union members and the crisis.  Shifting the cost of healthcare to workers under the current profit-driven system is a painful feature of virtually every set of contract negotiations these days.  For non-union workers, a voiceless majority of all workers, increasing the burden of costs is a slam-dunk for employers.  A publicly supported national healthcare system like those in virtually all other industrialized countries is the only rational answer.  On this issue labor needs to speak with one voice.

"There is a practical as well as ideological reality that is driving the current labor groundswell for a "Medicare for All" system. That reality is grounded in the fact that the current profit-driven, care-denying system has created the crisis. Runaway costs are a continuing price we pay for permitting private insurance companies to manipulate the system. 

"The new Healthcare for America Now (HCAN) coalition, which some in national labor are promoting includes the notion of a mixed system of public and private insurance for-profit providers, while running TV commercials condemning the role of those same bad-guys. The system needs to be changed completely, not tinkered with by leaving the fox in the chicken coop. 

"There is much to be excited about with the historic election of  Barrack Obama as our next President.  But his healthcare proposal, as described during the long campaign, perpetuates many of the current system's failures.  With a significant increase in Democrats in the House and Senate, it is almost certain that some form of national healthcare reform will be on the agenda.  The test for the labor movement is whether we can be united and proactive enough to help build the kind of independent grassroots campaign and social movement in support of a Single-Payer System that the politicians cannot ignore?

"Over the years, the strategy of trusting a newly elected Democratic Administration to do the right thing on labor's critical issues has proven to be a failed policy.  We should remember the Labor Law Reform legislation of 1977 and President Carter, along with the neutering of Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. 

"Fast-forward to President Clinton's imposition of NAFTA, the cruel Welfare Rights Reform, and his failure to help secure the bar on Striker Replacements. On all these critical questions Labor's trust was abused and our all-too-willing compromises trashed.