While the incoming Obama administration has expressed its commitment to healthcare reform, it is not inclined to support single payer national healthcare – even though that is the only proposal that would actually reduce the country’s healthcare costs while providing coverage to everyone. That’s because single payer would eliminate the huge expense of funding the profits, excessive bureaucracy and waste of the private health insurance corporations. But in the weeks since the election, there has been increased activity by advocates of single payer, and much more will be happening in the new year.

Several meetings have been held in Washington by a new coalition called the Leadership Conference on Guaranteed Health Care – The National Single-Payer Coalition. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), the main sponsor of HR 676, the “Medicare for All” single-payer bill in Congress, is supportive of this effort. Other participating organizations include the California Nurses Association – National Nurses Organizing Committee, the International Association of Machinists (IAM), International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), Progressive Democrats of America, Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) and Healthcare Now!  The AFL-CIO was also represented, although it is not actively supporting single payer. Political Action Director Chris Townsend has represented UE with this group, and a spokesperson for Rep. Conyers noted that UE was the first union to support single payer.

Another coalition in formation is the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Healthcare. It is planning a founding conference to be held in St. Louis on January 10. Leaders of that effort say their focus will be on mobilizing the widespread support for single payer that exists among rank-and-file unionists and in grassroots labor bodies. You can find more information at their website, www.laborforsinglepayer.org.  So far, HR 676 has been endorsed by 476 union organizations in 49 states. These include 118 central labor councils (the local AFL-CIO federations) and 39 state AFL-CIO federations.

Democratic politicians and strategists who want to keep the private insurance companies in control of healthcare insist that single payer “is not politically feasible” and claim that the public will not support it. But polls show otherwise. Various national polls since 2003 have repeatedly shown that 60 to 70 percent of Americans support a single-payer government-run health insurance system. For example, an Associated Press poll in 2007 asked whether they favored “a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare that is run by the government and financed by taxpayers.” Sixty-five percent said yes.

The Labor Campaign for Single Payer is organizing call-in days to Congress, on December 22 and January 15, to convince more members of Congress to co-sponsor HR 676 and to push for hearings on the bill. Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121, and they will connect you to the office of your member of Congress. You can find out more about your representatives in Congress at www.thomas.loc [1], Vote Smart [2]and the UE political action page at www.ueunion.org [3].