Retirees Needed on the Front Lines in Health Care Battle

By Addie Brinkley
RMC Board Member and Healthcare Coordinator

In 1988, 66 percent of all U.S. employers provided retirees health care benefits — many of them negotiated by CWA and other labor unions.

Today, half of those employers have dropped retiree health care and others are threatening to do so. Our union and others are fighting as hard as we can to save retiree benefits, but it's tough.

That's why we as retirees have to be a big, vocal, visible part of the battle that CWA is waging to guarantee that every American has access to affordable health care. Our union's leaders have committed to this fight in the same way they've committed to passing the Employee Free Choice Act, seeing both as vital to the strength of our country and the health and economic well being of all working families.

I'm asking you to join me and the rest of the leadership of the Retired Members' Council in this campaign not just for ourselves but to ensure that our children and grandchildren won't have to risk being bankrupted by medical debts or fear that a pre-existing condition will keep them from getting insurance.

In February, CWA held an energetic series of workshops for health care activists, which I attended with my fellow board member Ray Myers. We talked about getting our message out and the concerns some Americans, even CWA members, have about changing our health care system.

The fact is, many concerns are based on myths that simply aren't true. We are rightly proud of our country for many achievements, but it's no longer true, if it ever was, that we have the world's best health care system. In other developed countries such as Canada and most of Europe, virtually 100 percent of people have guaranteed health care. In America, our costs are staggeringly higher yet we have 47 million people with no health insurance, we die younger and have a higher infant mortality rate.

CWA's campaign isn't focusing on a specific solution — all the details of the debate that candidates and economists are arguing over. But we're insisting that Congress by the year 2010 choose a solution that guarantees affordable health care for all and that by 2012 the plan will be in place.

In this issue of the CWA News you can read much more about the campaign our union is leading and what you can do to help — things as easy but important as sending a postcard to your member of Congress and arming yourself with the facts so you're ready next time a friend or neighbor spouts one of those health care myths.

Profoundly important is that we work to elect U.S. House and Senate members and a president this fall who will stand with us on health care reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.

It's going to be an exciting year. Let's get to work.

www.cwaretirees.com