On the Line with International President
Joe Hansen

Rx for Health Care

Access to doctors, even specialists, whenever we need an appointment. Being able to fill prescriptions or to take your child to a check-up without concern for how much it’s going to cost out-of-pocket. Caring for your aging parent knowing that cost is not a factor in his or her care. Does all this sound good to you?   It does to me.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it’s time for us to do something about health care.   For too long, we’ve been plugging holes in the levees at the bargaining table. We’ve tried to work with our employers to reduce costs and maintain benefits, but UFCW members have had to take community action, mobilize their workplaces, and been forced onto picket lines fighting to protect affordable health care. We shouldn’t have to go on strike or accept cuts to protect health care. 

I believe the employer-based health care system served us well for more than 40 years. Making health insurance affordable through the workplace was the most effective way to cover the greatest number of people and maintain quality and affordability. But rising costs mean that that system may not survive—especially when it is being undermined by Wal-Mart. 

The Wal-Mart model is to make basic healthcare too expensive for most of their workers to afford—or to otherwise create as many barriers to coverage as possible. The New York Times recently revealed a Wal-Mart secret memo in which Wal-Mart management admitted to shifting millions in health care dollars to taxpayers. Forty-six percent of the children of Wal-Mart employees are either uninsured or dependent on taxpayer-funded public health care programs. They even stooped low enough to suggest pushing out employees with health issues like obesity and weight-related illnesses. We cannot let the Wal-Mart model continue to destroy health care for all Americans. It’s time that working families have quality, affordable health care without being forced to walk a picket line to get it.

Make Your Voice Heard

Two years ago, Congress created the Citizens’ Health Care Working Group (CHCWG) to solicit opinions about our nation’s health care crisis directly from the American public. I have the distinct honor to serve with 14 other citizens who were selected to represent an informed cross-section of the American people. This is the first time since 1992 that the federal government has sanctioned a program to put citizens directly in touch with policy makers about solutions to our health care problem.   Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who sponsored the legislation to create this working group, believe that lawmakers need to hear from people like you in order to change our health care system for the better.

When I talk to members, stewards and those on bargaining committees around the country, everyone echoes similar concerns about healthcare. It’s clear that health care is a national problem that demands a national solution.

• Health care should work for everyone to keep everyone healthy.
• We need a rational health care system that guarantees health care to everyone,   not system that denies affordable health care to those in need.
• We need to trade all of the overlapping and redundant services in our current health care system for a streamlined, cost-effective system.
• Health care must be a right, not a privilege.

You can begin participating immediately by completing a brief survey on the CHCWG website.   Throughout the winter, community meetings will be held   across the country where UFCW members, your neighbors, and community members will have the chance to talk about your experiences grappling with the cost of and access to quality care.  We need to hear what you think about our health care system and what we can do to fix the problems. With your help, we can fix our health care system and lead the world in affordable, quality health care for all.