LABOR HITS McCAIN’S HEALTH CARE PLAN

The health care plan offered in late April by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the presumed GOP presidential nominee would dismantle the present employer-based health care system, leaving workers and their families defenseless against the insurance companies, AFL-CIO political director Karen Ackerman.

In an April 30 telephone press conference, Ackerman slammed McCain’s scheme, but also said the AFL-CIO would not submit a plan of its own as an alternative. Instead, it would support the plan offered by the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) or Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.).

McCain disclosed his plan in a speech in Florida. It features individual medical savings accounts--a favorite Right Wing cause--taxing individuals for the value of employer-provided health insurance and a $5,000 tax credit for individuals to cover buying insurance. The senator claimed competition for individuals would drive prices down.

Ackerman said that’s ridiculous. She predicted firms would dump health care.

“McCain’s plan would be an absolute disaster for working families. It’s one only the insurance companies could love,” she commented. “Those people with pre-existing conditions would have a harder time finding coverage, while tax cuts he includes would provide $1.9 billion to the health insurance companies.”

The federation will take that message to its members in 337 central labor council and state fed meetings, labor-to-neighbor walks on health care in 125 cities on May 17, and distribution of 1 million health care flyers in workplaces. It will set up union phone banks on health care in key swing states, including Ohio. “We feel it’s very important to begin by taking a careful look at what McCain is talking about,” Ackerman said.

Despite rising sentiment among its rank and file for enacting government-run single-payer health care--the latest endorsement came from the Chicago Teachers Union--the AFL-CIO has not endorsed a specific plan yet.

It backs general principles: Universal coverage, cost containment, shared responsibility among government, business and consumers for financing, the right to choose your own doctor, and having the federal government both a check on private sector excesses and as insurer for those who cannot get private coverage.

In an April 24 forum, federation President John J. Sweeney added another prin-ciple: That quality of care is non-negotiable. And that doesn’t mean bargaining between companies and unions over individual policies, but “negotiations…in our national political arena over the shape and substance of national health care reform. For us, the words, ‘affordable, high-quality, health care for all’ are inseparable…We will not bargain for, nor will we accept, a second-class health care system,” he declared.