PSI Health Blog

Health care reform in the USA

A STEP FORWARD, MUCH WORK LEFT TO DO

STATEMENTS BY PSI AFFILIATES

AFSCME

President Gerald W. McEntee, Vice President of the AFL-CIO

"Tonight's historic vote marks a major milestone in the struggle to break the power of the insurance industry and provide quality, affordable health care for millions of American families. Democrats in the House, with the determined leadership of President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, demonstrated the courage that is necessary to defeat the special interests and do what is right for the American people.

AFSCME members will remember those who stood with us and those who stood with the insurance industry.... Together, we will not fail. Tonight, we celebrate a monumentally important victory for our country. Tomorrow, we get back to work in the fight to make health care reform happen."

Read more:

A Monumentally Important Victory for Our Country

AFSCME launches ad campaign

SEIU

Anna Burger

SEIU Secretary Treasurer, Vice President Change to Win

"For the child who was denied coverage because she got too sick, too young – tomorrow is a new day for our country. The 5.5 million members of Change to Win, united in their commitment to bring the change our families, our communities and our country needs, earned this victory the old fashioned way: they worked for it. It is because of their passion and their steadfast belief in doing what's right that Congress stood and delivered the change they demanded."

Read more:

Landmark Health Care Bill Signed Into Law

Timeline of the immediate benefits of health insurance reform

AFT

Randi Weingarten,
President, American Federation of Teachers

"We applaud... [the] action by the U.S. House of Representatives that brings us to the cusp of affordable and accessible healthcare and prevents insurance companies from denying coverage to millions of Americans.

The House package will allow 32 million more Americans to receive healthcare coverage... And insurance companies will not be able to deny benefits because of pre-existing conditions or cancel policies because of illness.

While this is not a perfect bill...it makes a significant start at getting costs under control and moves the nation toward the goal of affordable, high-quality healthcare for all Americans."

Read more:

AFT Press release

Fight for America's Future

CNA

Rose Ann DeMoro
Executive Director, National Nurses United, AFL-CIO and California Nurses Association

"Passage of President Obama's healthcare bill proves that Congress can enact comprehensive social legislation in the face of virulent rightwing opposition. Now that we have an insurance bill, can we move on to health care reform?

As an organization of registered nurses, we have an obligation to provide an honest assessment, as nurses must do every hour of every day. The legislation fails to deliver on the promise of a single standard of excellence in care for all and instead makes piecemeal adjustments to the current privatized, for-profit health care behemoth."

Read more:

Diary of a Wimpy Health Care Bill

Icelanders reject becoming Iceslaves

An astounding 93% of voters reject unfair terms imposed by the governments of the UK and the Netherlands as Iceland takes the lead in following a democratic approach to handling the consequences of the crisis

 

[Please see statement by Ogmundur Jonasson]

On 6 March, 2010, Icelanders did what no one in the world has done yet. Un-fazed by near-freezing weather and drizzle they went to the polls and let their government and the world know they will not be made to shoulder an unfair and unsustainable burden for the reckless policies of greedy private bankers. They made it clear they refuse to be made Iceslaves by the fallout from the Icesave collapse.

They voted on a referendum on whether or not the Icesave bill approved by a narrow majority in Parliament and vetoed by President Olafur Grimsson, should be enacted. The bill would obligate Iceland to accept the terms set by the governments of the UK and the Netherlands for repayment of the "Icesave Loan Agreement."

Health workers union prevails in Nova Scotia, Canada

Proving that unions can stop efforts to make workers pay for an economic crisis that was not of their creation, CUPE members were successful in defending their hard-earned right to wage parity and their right to strike.

(see prior coverage: Global Issues tested as strike looms in Nova Scotia)

The Nova Scotia provincial government had argued that the union's wage demands, based on maintaining parity with non-rural areas, was not possible due to budget deficits in the climate created by the current crisis. Karen MacKenzie, president of CUPE Local 2525, which represents basically all primary health-care workers within the hospitals, responded by saying  "he (Premier Dexter) is not going to balance his budget on the backs of Nova Scotia health-care workers. That’s just not happening.”

When the union decided to go on strike, politicians in the Conservative party questioned their right to strike. When their party was in power, they had attempted to pass legislation that would deny health workers that right.

The union was undeterred. Picket lines went up at 6:00 am on 18 January, as had been announced by the union well in advance of the strike deadline.

Global issues tested as strike looms in Nova Scotia, Canada

Health and School Workers Refuse to Pay for the Crisis as they Defend Wage Parity and their Right to Strike 

Karen MacKenzie, president of CUPE Local 2525: "We are not going backwards"

Negotiating Committees for 4,100 hospital workers and more than 3,000 school board workers in Nova Scotia, Canada, have announced a strike deadline of Monday, January 18, 2010. They are represented by CUPE, The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents 600 000 public sector workers across Canada. Both groups are already in a legal strike position.

The CUPE hospital workers are in 33 hospitals in rural Nova Scotia, outside of Halifax. The key outstanding issue for the hospital group is maintaining wage parity with their counterparts in Halifax, something they have had for 10 years now. 

The school board workers are in eight school boards, also outside of Halifax. For the school board group, the issue is a contract offer that’s inferior to ones that have been given to other workers in the sector.

And a group of 3,500 long term and community care workers are not far behind them, facing similar issues in bargaining.

PSI leader Ogmundur Jonasson leads democratic opposition in Iceland

Ogmundur Jonasson --a member of the Parliament of Iceland and of the Executive Boards of PSI and EPSU --, continues to successfully lead the opposition to the unfair treatment of Iceland by the governments of the UK and the Netherlands. Today, the movement he leads succeeded in getting the President of Iceland to refuse to sign legislation that would impose onerous conditions on his country's population.

Acting on behalf of powerful financial concerns, the governments of the UK and the Netherlands have used the IMF and EU to pressure Icelanders to shoulder the burden the price of the decisions of the executives of Landsbanki and foreign investors (see story below from the Financial Times) . 

Jonasson, who resigned his post as Health Minister over his views on the Icesave agreement, has stated that "the British and Dutch are using the IMF and the EU as weapons to force the country to accept more debt than it is responsible for." 

Staff cuts and flu pandemic prompt global nurse protests

Protests in California, Australia and Ireland

(Reprinted from Nursing Times*)

18 August 2009 | By Steve Ford

Staff cuts and swine flu have been the focus for organised protests by nurses around the world this month.

More than 100 nurses attended a rally in San Francisco protesting at the lack of safety preparation for the flu pandemic in California’s hospitals.

The event, organised by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, followed the death from swine flu of a 51-year-old nurse who worked at a Sacramento hospital.

The two organisations claim hospitals in California are not adequately prepared to protect their nurses from infection. A survey of their members has uncovered ‘systemic problems with safety gear for nurses and infection control procedures for patients’, they said.

Nurses in the north coast area of the state of New South Wales in Australia also held a series of rallies in protest against a decision to amalgamate senior nurse management positions. Under management proposals 15 hospitals could lose their directors of nursing.

Closer to home, health service bosses in Ireland agreed to postpone planned nurse job cuts until a patient risk assessment has been carried out. Ireland’s Health Service Executive agreed to defer the termination of 21 fixed-term and temporary nursing contracts in three hospitals following talks with unions.

The deferral has been made to allow time for detailed assessments of the potential clinical risks that may result from the cuts.

Lorraine Monaghan, industrial relations officer at the Irish Nurses Organisation, said: ‘We have no doubt, that such risk assessments, when carried out in an open and transparent manner, will uncover dangerously low staffing levels in all three hospitals’.

* NOTE: Nursing Times is the leading weekly magazine for nurses in the United Kingdom. In April 2009, Nursing Times and PSI affiliate UNISON established a working agreement

Korean health workers victory

One of the greatest pleasures of working for PSI as health officer, is to meet and work with the committed union activists and leaders of our affiliates. Earlier this year, I met the leaders of an incredibly dynamic  union when I attended the 10th anniversary celebration of the KHMU, in Seoul, South Korea.

The Korean Health and Medical Workers union was formed under extremely difficult condition, when the country was still under a repressive military regime. As conditions improved, ten years ago, they became an industrial union and have been fighting persistently to improve the conditions of their members, the quality of care patients receive and the political conditions of their country.

After the recent elections, when a new conservative president got elected, and his party won a decisive majority in Parliament, prospects looked grim. But the KHMU did not relent.

In April, they began negotiations for a new national collective bargaining agreement, and in spite of facing an seemingly unfavorable climate, began to mobilize their members. Then, in June, massive demonstrations broke out against the policies of the new government, with much of the focus being the Free Trade Agreement with the United States. Public demonstrations reached up to 1 million participants.

In July, the KHMU organized their members for a strike starting on 23 July in protest of the commercialisation of medical facilities and the use of American beef in patients' meals, while calling for a 10.2 percent pay raise and the hiring of more personnel. They also demanded the government to scrap plans to privatise the medical insurance system, to improve staffing and provide better wages and working conditions.

The government and employers responded with threats, but were forced into the negotiation table. The KHMU proceeded to rally their members and hold public demonstrations.

Finally in 28 August, after 4 months, the Hospital Employers’ Association signed a National Collective Agreement. The contents of the agreement are amazing under any country's conditions, with gains that go beyond improved wages and safer workplaces, but which include unprecedented recognition of the rights of women health  workers (like paid menstruation holidays) and for the patients they treat.

Here is the KHMU’s description of the results:

The main contents of the agreement as follows:

·         4~5 percent of wage increase.

• Industrial Minimum Wage should be increased to 950,000 won (around 930 USD) per a month.
• Wage increase rate for irregular workers should be higher than that of regular workers.
• Meat with doubt of mad cow disease should be banned in hospitals.
• Fresh agro-livestock products should be provided in hospitals.
• Supplement of the staffing for hospital should be made.
• Joint cooperation to improve the medical evaluation system which government is in charge of.
• The Charter of Patient Rights and the National Health Insurance System should be more actively publicized by hospitals.
• Menstruation holiday should be paid.
• Mechanism and tools to eliminate workplace violence should be introduced and strengthened.

·         The National Labor-Management Council should be immediately held.