Email to webmaster (Gene Lantz) Back to home page

TARA Executive Board Will Fight for Health Care

President Victor Pauly convened the quarterly meeting of the Texas Alliance for Retired Americans in Austin on March 3. Jo Cole, Elaine Jones, Gene Lantz, Eunice Parrish, and Annie M Banks came in for the meeting. Labor photographer Jay Dunn sat in and took photos. The business at hand was enlarging our membership. Affiliation fees for organizations, nearly always less than $30/year, are no obstacle to joining. Every retiree organization that has been approached has agreed to join. However, not nearly enough Texas retirees know about TARA.

TARA is committed to fighting against negative changes in Social Security, and we want to bring down the price of prescription medicines. The health care crisis calls out for Americans to work for national health care. The Executive Board took note that other states are far ahead of Texas in building support for the most popular health care bill, HR 676 originally authored by Congressman John Conyers. In other states, nurses and other health care workers have formed unions and are leading the fight. Texas lags because there are so few unions among health care workers. TARA intends to help make up for that deficit!

One way to help "jump start" the Texas effort is to support the Texas Hospital Patient Protection Act that is currently being considered in the state legislature. It would improve Texas hospitals by lowering the patient/nurse ratio and providing "whistle blower" protection for nurses who are presently afraid to report bad practices for fear of being fired.

The TARA Executive Board unanimously endorsed single-payer national health care, Canadian style, like HR676. Further, we will work to get wider support throughout the state. Gene Lantz presented the fundamental ideas from the sample resolution we studied before taking our position. It is below:

RESOLUTION ENDORSING HR 676 - Single Payer Universal Health CareWorkers, their families and their unions are waging an increasingly difficult struggle to win or to keep good health care coverage. Almost every union at every contract deadline must battle and sacrifice merely to sustain health care benefits. The rising costs of health insurance are blocking workers' progress in wages and other areas. All of our unions face a healthcare crisis.
But the crisis extends far beyond union members. More than 45 million people in the U. S. are currently without health insurance, more than 75 million went without for some length of time within the last two years, and millions more have inadequate coverage or are at risk of losing coverage. People of color, immigrants and women are denied care at disproportionate rates, while the elderly and many others must choose between necessities and life sustaining drugs and care. Unorganized workers have either no or inadequate coverage. The Institute of Medicine has found that each year more than 18,000 in the U. S. die because they had no health insurance.
While we in the United States spend approximately twice as much of our gross domestic product as other developed nations on health care, we remain the only industrialized country without universal coverage. Our problem worsens each year as insurance costs increase and as gradual solutions have failed to make a dent in the problem.
The U. S. health system continues to treat health care as a commodity distributed according to the ability to pay, rather than as a social service to be distributed according to human need. Insurance companies and HMOs compete not by increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding covering those whose needs are greatest.
Economic necessity and moral conscience compel us to seek a better way. Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI) (joined by 78 co-signers) has introduced HR 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act, also called Expanded and Improved Medicare for All. This single-payer health care program proposes an effective mechanism for controlling skyrocketing health costs while covering all 43 million uninsured Americans. The bill also restores free choice of physicians to patients and provides comprehensive prescription drug coverage to seniors, as well as to younger people.
HR 676 would cover every person in the U. S. for all necessary medical care including prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health, physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care, chiropractic and long term care. HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save billions annually by eliminating high overhead and profits of the private health insurance industry and HMOs. The transition to national health insurance would apply the savings from administration and profits to expanded and improved coverage for all.
(over)

A single payer program as provided by HR 676 is the only affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage.
Resolved:
That __________________________________ wholeheartedly endorses Congressman Conyers' bill HR 676, "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All," a single payer health care program.
That _____________________ will work with other unions and community groups to build a groundswell of popular support and action for single payer universal health care and HR 676 until we make what is morally right for our nation into what is also politically possible.
That _____________________ will send a copy of this resolution to Congressman Conyers, to all members of the U.S. House and Senate, to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, and to the news media.
That ______________________ will take other actions to mobilize our members and our community at the grassroots to encourage other members of the House to sign on as co-sponsors of HR 676 and to encourage Senators to introduce a companion bill in the Senate.
Our local union/district council/labor council also endorsed HR 676:
Union______________________________________International______________________
Address____________________________________________________________________
City__________________________ State _______________________ Zip ______________
Phone:__________________ Fax:_____________________ email:_____________________
Signed by__________________________________Title______________________________
Date____________________
Please return to: Kay Tillow, All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care HR 676, c/o Nurses Professional Organization, 1169 Eastern Parkway, #2218, Louisville, KY 40217, (502) 636-1551, nursenpo@aol.com

**

Sister Annie M Banks of Houston volunteered to help spread the word.

The next meeting of the Executive Board is set for June 2.

--Gene Lantz, TARA Communications Director