2004 HEALTH CARE ACTION WEEK
The scope and scale of the health care crisis continues to get worse. Here are the facts:[1]
- Forty-four million Americans currently lack health insurance, and millions more are underinsured. Over the last four years, 4 million more people lost their health coverage. Eight out of ten uninsured are from working families.
- Nine million people have lost employer-sponsored health insurance coverage since 2001.
- Rather than deal with rising costs, employers are shifting those costs to workers with higher premiums, co-pays, deductibles, and huge cuts in benefits. And they are dropping retiree plans, so millions more are now underinsured.
- The United States spends $1.8 trillion on health care - more than twice the per person average of other developed nations. Yet it is behind most of the developed world on major health indicators such as infant mortality and life expectancy.
- Prescription drug costs consumed 1.8 percent of personal income in 2002 - up by half in just four years. Yet 1 in 4 Americans lacks drug coverage. The Bush Administration's Medicare prescription drug plan will cover just 25 percent of the average senior's expenses after 2006, while giving away billions to drug makers, HMOs, and employers.
- Instead of strengthening the largest and most successful public health insurance program - Medicare - the Administration's recent "reforms" promote Health Savings Accounts and high deductible insurance plans to make patients pay more.
The current system is failing working families. It's time for action to make health care an issue that all candidates feel compelled to address prior to the Nov. 2 election.
To that end, Jobs with Justice - and many of our health care reform allies -- are sponsoring an "Affordable Health Care for All" week of action October 3 through 10, to send a message to all politicians and employers demanding real health care reform. Acting together that week, we can put pressure on employers and government for immediate action to expand and improve Medicare-type coverage rather than undermine and privatize it. Medicare is the nation's most efficient, secure, and publicly accountable health program.
A new research report on insurance industry waste and inefficiency for release by local JWJ coalitions and other organizations will be available for the week of action. Other actions during the week could include rallies and marches, educational forums, workplace sticker days, outreach to not-yet-union workers, and town hall style forums. The week of action will complement efforts by labor unions and other organizations to conduct their membership education and get-out-the-vote efforts.
To get involved in organizing health care action week events, visit our website at www.jwj.org.
National organizations participating in Health Care Action Week (as of
April 28, 2006
- list in formation)
- American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees
- Association of Flight Attendants
- Communications Workers of America
- International Brotherhood of Teamsters
- International Longshore & Warehouse Union
- National Education Association
- Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy Union - PACE
- Service Employees International Union
- United Electrical Workers
- United Food & Commercial Workers
- United Steelworkers of America
Sponsors of the national "Affordable Health Care for All" week of action:
- Americans for Health Care
- American Medical Students Association
- Institute for America's Future
- RESULTS
- Summit Health Institute for Research and Education (SHIRE)
- Universal Health Care Action Network
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