Jan. 5—Working families, their unions and community allies are joining with the AFL-CIO in launching a major health care campaign in 33 states to ensure the largest corporations, such as Wal-Mart, stop shifting health care insurance costs onto workers, taxpayers and other businesses.
As part of the AFL-CIO “Fair Share Health Care” campaign, activists will work with state legislators to win legislation to require companies to pay their fair share for health care. Fair Share Health Care legislation will reduce the bill taxpayers pay to cover profitable employer’s employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don’t.
“A problem this big deserves a national solution, but the Washington of Tom DeLay and Bill Frist isn’t listening to working people, so we’re going to take it on state by state—much like we’ve done in trying to raise the minimum wage,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, announcing the launch of the union movement’s health care campaign Jan. 5. DeLay (R-Texas) recently stepped down from his post as U.S. House majority leader after he was charged with felony money laundering. Frist (R-Tenn.) is U.S. Senate majority leader.
Jessie Smart of Alliance, Ohio, worked at a local Wal-Mart store from 2000 to 2003 and says that when she was hired, store mangers told her the available health insurance would be affordable on her salary—but it wasn’t.
“It took just about all my pay but a few bucks,” says Smart. We were forced to go to the state of Ohio Medicaid to get health coverage for our children,” she says.
“Why should a company like Wal-Mart—which made $10 billion last year alone—be able to force taxpayers to foot the bill for their health care costs?” Sweeney asked.
People Who Work for a Living ‘Should Have Health Care’
While Fair Share Health Care legislation will differ slightly in each state, in general the legislation will require large corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll to provide health care benefits for their employees or pay into a state Fair Share Health Care Fund. The percent of payroll employers would be either set by the state legislature or set based on the average percentage paid by large employers in the state.
Last year in Maryland, working families were successful in winning passage of Fair Share Health Care legislation. But in May, Gov. Robert Ehrlich (R)—with a top Wal-Mart executive by his side—vetoed the bill. When the state legislature reconvenes this year, working family activists will work with state lawmakers to override the veto.
“The Fair Share Health Care Act is the best approach to set a floor for health care. People who work for a living should have health care,” says Washington State Rep. Eileen Cody (D), who is fighting for Fair Share Health Care legislation in her state.
Profitable Corporations Cut Health Coverage While Number of Uninsured Soar
The number of people without health insurance continues to climb—from 41 million in 2000 to 46 million in 2004, according to government statistics—at the same time, more companies are cutting back employer-based health coverage. In 2000, 69 percent of firms offered health coverage to workers, but in 2005 that percentage dropped to just 60 percent. In fact, more than a quarter of all firms with more than 500 employees don’t offer employer-based health insurance for workers and their families, according to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, a nonpartisan private foundation that supports independent research into health care issues.
As more firms drop health insurance coverage, workers, taxpayers and other businesses are forced to pick up the tab. Some workers buy their own health insurance or pay out-of-pocket for health care costs. Other workers and their families are forced to turn to taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid or the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, costing taxpayers some $21 billion a year, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
For example, 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart’s 1.33 million U.S. workers are either uninsured or on Medicaid, according to Wal-Mart’s own information. In addition, fewer than half of Wal-Mart’s workers have health care coverage on the job, according to an October 2003 AFL-CIO report.
As a result, many Wal-Mart workers and their families turn to emergency rooms and other public health services as their only health care option. In 12 of the 13 states where data has been released and analyzed, Wal-Mart workers rely on public health programs more than workers from any other company in those states.
The Commonwealth Fund also estimated employers with worker health coverage are forced to spend about $31 billion a year to cover the cost of employees shifting the health care costs of their uninsured family members to their employer-provided coverage.
With Republican extremists roadblocking working family legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C.—Republicans hold a majority in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate—union activists and their allies are turning to the states to win crucial working family legislation on improving access to health care, raising the minimum wage and more.
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