An Rx for the Health Care Crisis?

by   |  January 25, 2007

Apparently President Bush has discovered that our health care system is in need of attention. Welcome to the real world, Mr. President. AFSCME and others have been working on this problem for two decades. Unfortunately, the President’s prescription for what ails us is meaningless manipulation of the tax code. It will do nothing to address the affordability of health care for AFSCME members or other members of the middle-class. But it will provide many higher income, self-employed earners with huge tax breaks while at the same time subjecting the health benefits of many in the middle class to taxation. The president continues to foster a “go it alone” strategy when every expert recognizes that health benefit systems work best when there is shared risk. No wonder House leader Pelosi called the President’s plan “empty rhetoric.” What this country needs is meaningful reform. AFSCME members have long recognized this need and as recently as at our Convention in August we passed a resolution in opposition to the President’s tax-based plans and passed another resolution setting out our own prescription to cure the health care crisis. It will take more than rhetoric and tax manipulation. It will take a plan that addresses affordability, access to coverage, quality of care, and fairness in financing. It’s time for health care reform that matters. AFSCME is committed; and thousands of our members are engaged in the fight.