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Convention Forum Focuses on Health Care Crisis
Skyrocketing health care costs, rising numbers of uninsured Americans, growing demands on nurses and the challenges unions face bargaining for health benefits were the focus of an information-packed forum at the CWA convention.
"Each year it gets tougher and tougher for our members to negotiate health care, and it's at a critical stage now," said Brooks Sunkett, CWA vice president for the Public, Health Care and Education Workers sector, which sponsored the event. "The idea was to inform people about not only about the health care crisis, but what some of the alternatives are, what some states are doing to try to reform the system."
The forum also focused on the impact on health care workers, who are short-staffed and working forced overtime. CWA represents about 10,000 nurses. "It's very difficult for them," Sunkett said. "Nurses are always the ones that bear the brunt of the criticism."
Panelists included Patty De Vinney, president of Nurses United, CWA Local 1168, who talked about the many forces causing the crisis beyond the usual suspects - the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. While both are grossly guilty of profiteering, she said there's far more involved.
She showed a "wheel" that her local and Jobs with Justice have developed with 20 spokes listing more specific "forces opposing quality health care," from cuts in Medicare to an emphasis on for-profit medical centers to staffing cuts.
"Nobody is getting the kind of health care they should get," she said. "There is no health policy. What we have is a profiteering system, and what trickles down is what's left over to provide care."
"Each year it gets tougher and tougher for our members to negotiate health care, and it's at a critical stage now," said Brooks Sunkett, CWA vice president for the Public, Health Care and Education Workers sector, which sponsored the event. "The idea was to inform people about not only about the health care crisis, but what some of the alternatives are, what some states are doing to try to reform the system."
The forum also focused on the impact on health care workers, who are short-staffed and working forced overtime. CWA represents about 10,000 nurses. "It's very difficult for them," Sunkett said. "Nurses are always the ones that bear the brunt of the criticism."
Panelists included Patty De Vinney, president of Nurses United, CWA Local 1168, who talked about the many forces causing the crisis beyond the usual suspects - the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. While both are grossly guilty of profiteering, she said there's far more involved.
She showed a "wheel" that her local and Jobs with Justice have developed with 20 spokes listing more specific "forces opposing quality health care," from cuts in Medicare to an emphasis on for-profit medical centers to staffing cuts.
"Nobody is getting the kind of health care they should get," she said. "There is no health policy. What we have is a profiteering system, and what trickles down is what's left over to provide care."