by Mike Hall
Leon in South Dakota says that the health insurance his union bargained for with his employer saved his life.
But with the non-stop, skyrocketing costs of health care, Kyle in Michigan says it is getting harder and harder for workers and their unions to maintain that kind of life-saving, employer-provided coverage.
Teresa in Washington State knows firsthand what increased health costs mean in her paycheck.
The three union workers are part of the 27,000 union and nonunion workers, insured and uninsured, old and young who took the AFL-CIO/Working America 2008 Health Care for America Survey. Like the three union workers, nearly 7,500 respondents shared stories about their personal experiences with the nation’s broken health care system.
Some 95 percent of the people who took the survey say the health care system in this country needs fundamental change or to be completely rebuilt.
Union workers are more likely to have employer-provided health coverage. In March 2007, 78 percent of union workers in the private sector had jobs with employer-provided health insurance, compared with only 49 percent of nonunion workers. That union advantage kept Leon alive:
I am fortunate in the fact that I have health insurance provided through a collective bargaining agreement. Even though I am now required to make a monthly contribution for that coverage. Annual exams are a routine part of my health maintenance. In 2007, my annual physical led to a CT Scan, which diagnosed the presence of a kidney tumor. I had no symptoms, which lead me or my physician to believe a kidney condition existed. Early detection led to the surgical removal of the tumor, which proved to be malignant and the retention of more than 90 percent of the affected kidney.
Absent an employer-provided health plan, annual exams and coverage, which permitted me to afford aggressive treatment, this condition would have likely advanced until obvious symptoms developed, which would have increased the probability of a life-threatening disease.
Yet it is more and more difficult for unions to bargain for health care. Health coverage has become a major factor in virtually all union contract bargaining, with increasing employee cost-sharing consuming wage increases and other improvements for which unions are fighting. Union members are acutely aware of these effects: 67 percent of members and 66 percent of people in union households say their costs for employer-provided coverage have gotten worse.
Kyle knows this firsthand.
We are currently in negotiation with our employer. I have the unpleasant task of being on our bargaining team. Our employer is standing firm on no raises, reduced insurance coverage and lowering paid time off. Times are tough for our company but a gallon of milk or gas isn’t getting any more affordable for our membership either. This April will mark the second year without a contract or raise for our local thanks largely in part to double digit percentage increases yearly for health care.
Teresa says she sees the results of soaring health costs in every paycheck.
I have a job with a union contract. Every year, I get a raise that works out to be about $12.00 per week. About the same time each year, I get a memo from my employer that my family’s health insurance premium has increased by roughly the same amount. I have not seen a real increase to my take-home pay in 12 years at my company. Meanwhile, our family’s bills for EVERYTHING else have risen, too.
The vast majority of people who took the survey say they are looking to the November elections as a major step to stop the type of erosion of health care coverage Kyle and Teresa describe. Seventy percent of respondents say that when they step into a voting booth in November—and 97 percent say they will vote—health care will be a major issue when they mark their ballots.
The AFL-CIO will present the results of this survey to candidates for public office at every level and increase its mobilization to help ensure that candidates who win in November go into office with a mandate for real health care reform.
The two Democratic candidates contending for the presidential nomination, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.), have released comprehensive health plans aimed at providing health care coverage. The proposal by Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) relies on the current private insurance industry-based system and new taxes on working families with employer-provided coverage—just like President Bush’s failed health care proposal.
This month, central labor councils across the country will focus on health care and the 2008 elections, letting working families know where the candidates for president and Congress stand on health care.
For more on the AFL-CIO’s efforts to achieve health care reform, click here. Click here to become a health care activist.