Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced in a Capitol Hill press conference today that he will send a health care reform bill to the Senate floor that includes a public option. States will have until 2014 to decide if they want to participate in the public plan.

Reid said he was optimistic that health care reform will pass:

“I feel good about progress we have made within our caucus and with the White House, and we are all optimistic about reform because of the unprecedented momentum that exists.

“I believe that a public option can achieve the goal of bringing meaningful reform to our broken system. It will protect consumers, keep insurers honest and ensure competition. And that’s why we intend to include it on the bill that will be submitted to the Senate for consideration.”

In a telephone press conference this morning, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said any real health care reform bill must include a robust public option that helps lower premiums and keeps insurance companies honest by guaranteeing competition.

Real reform also must require employers to pay their fair share by providing health coverage or contributing to help pay for subsidies, Trumka said. Real reform should ensure that working families who already are struggling to pay for health care insurance are not asked to pay even more in the form of a new  excise tax on their coverage, he added.

There are still things that still need to be fixed in the Senate bill, according to the Health Care for America Now (HCAN) coalition, but Reid deserves thanks for including a public option. Click here to add your name to an HCAN the petition thanking Reid for fighting for America.

This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on October 26, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

About the Author: James Parks had his first encounter with unions at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when his colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. He saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. He is a journalist by trade, and worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. He has also been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. His proudest career moment, though, was when he served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.

Photo by Joe Kekeris/AFL-CIO

When Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) suggested she would block health care reform if it included a public option, Maine workers took action: The Maine AFL-CIO put its convention on hold so attendees could call her and tell her that a public option is essential to make reform work. (Recent polls in Maine suggest Mainers strongly support a public option.)

Here are some of the latest developments in the fight for real health care reform:

• Momentum is building for a public option in final bills being crafted in the U.S. Senate and the House. This is a critical time to contact your senators and representatives.
• Big companies like Wal-Mart are lobbying hard to exempt the coverage they provide from health care reform. That would leave tens of millions of workers stuck in the same high-cost, no-guarantee system we have today.
  

  Union members in Arkansas and across the country are telling their senators to support real health care reform.

• 55 members of Congress who oppose giving America the choice of a public option are actually getting government-administered health care through Medicare.
• Becky Moeller, president of the Texas AFL-CIO, writes in today’s San Antonio Express-News that the insurance companies are trying to stay in charge of our health care, but working families can’t afford the status quo.
• Mark Froemke, president of Minnesota’s Northern Valley Labor Council, has a great op-ed today in the Grand Forks Herald that lays out the stakes on health care:

If Congress fails to enact reform, things won’t just stay the same-they’ll get worse…unless we enact changes now, those who manage to keep their coverage will pay an even heftier price over the next 10 years.

As it stands, insurance companies have a stranglehold on our health care system, driving up costs and coming between middle-class Americans and the care they need.

• Minnesota union members rallied for heath care this week in Duluth, St. Cloud and Rochester.
• Union members in Louisiana and Arkansas also are rallying and reaching out to their Senators to demand health care reform that works.
• Yet another insurance company is playing with numbers, seeking to scare people about health care reform. This time it’s WellPoint fudging the facts and leaving out critical information. Check out this great chart from Think Progress that shows how the insurance companies are fighting reform.
• The Center for American Progress Action Fund has a great new report out today detailing insurance company’s tactics to hide vital information about denying coverage.

This post originally appeared in AFL-CIO blog on October 23, 2009. Re-printed with permission from the author.

About the Author: Seth Michaels is the online campaign coordinator for the AFL-CIO, focusing on the Employee Free Choice campaign. Prior to arriving at the AFL-CIO, he’s worked on online mobilization for Moveon.org, Blue State Digital and the National Jewish Democratic Council. He also spent two years touring the country as a member of the Late Night Players, a sketch comedy troupe.

Today, the Senate Finance Committee voted on two amendments from Senators Schumer and Rockefeller to add a public health insurance option to the Baucus Bill. Both of those amendments were defeated, 8-15 and 10-13 respectively.

In a long debate on the amendments, Senators spoke out vigorously in favor of the idea. Rockefeller exhorted his colleagues to consider the people of this country as they vote. Schumer asked why the insurance industry was afraid of a little competition. Cantwell, Menendez, Bingaman, Kerry, Bill Nelson, and Stabenow all made their cases and pushed back hard on the misinformation coming from the opposition. The intellectual and moral case for the public health insurance option was clear. And there were some pleasant surprises as Senator Wyden voted for both amendments, and Senators Bill Nelson and Carper voted for the Schumer amendment.

On the Rockefeller amendment, which would have created a public health insurance option based on Medicare, the roll call was:

Democrats

Max Baucus, MT – No
John D. Rockefeller IV, WV – Aye
Kent Conrad, ND – No
Jeff Bingaman, NM – Aye
John Kerry, MA – Aye
Blanche Lincoln, AR – No
Ron Wyden, OR – Aye
Charles Schumer, NY – Aye
Debbie Stabenow, MI – Aye
Maria Cantwell, WA – Aye
Bill Nelson, FL – No
Robert Menendez, NJ – Aye
Thomas Carper, DE – No

Republicans

Chuck Grassley, IA – No
Orrin Hatch, UT – No
Olympia Snowe, ME – No
Jon Kyl, AZ – No
Jim Bunning, KY – No
Mike Crapo, ID – No
Pat Roberts, KS – No
John Ensign, NV – No
Mike Enzi, WY – No
John Cornyn, TX – No

On the Schumer amendment, which would have created a “level playing field” public health insurance option, the roll call has:

Democrats

Max Baucus, MT – No
John D. Rockefeller IV, WV – Aye
Kent Conrad, ND – No
Jeff Bingaman, NM – Aye
John Kerry, MA – Aye
Blanche Lincoln, AR – No
Ron Wyden, OR – Aye
Charles Schumer, NY – Aye
Debbie Stabenow, MI – Aye
Maria Cantwell, WA – Aye
Bill Nelson, FL – Aye
Robert Menendez, NJ – Aye
Thomas Carper, DE – Aye

Republicans

Chuck Grassley, IA – No
Orrin Hatch, UT – No
Olympia Snowe, ME – No
Jon Kyl, AZ – No
Jim Bunning, KY – No
Mike Crapo, ID – No
Pat Roberts, KS – No
John Ensign, NV – No
Mike Enzi, WY – No
John Cornyn, TX – No

In the most conservative committee in the Senate, which is itself the most conservative house of Congress, a public health insurance option got the support of an overwhelming majority of the governing party. And as such, it sets the stage for the next step.

As has been reiterated over and over on this blog, the public health insurance option saves money and lowers costs, it’s the only way to hold insurance companies accountable, and it is overwhelmingly popular – both in Congress, where four out of five committees have already passed a public health insurance option, and with the American people, 77% of whom support the idea. The next time the public health insurance option will come up for consideration is when Harry Reid merges the Finance bill with the HELP bill. The above facts should be kept in mind during that process.

Today was the first step in building momentum for a public health insurance option in the Senate. Clearly, the idea has weight – even self-described moderates such as Bill Nelson and Tom Carper voted for it. As we move to the floor and into conference, with Schumer, Rockefeller, and other champions pledging support and whipping their colleagues, those numbers can and will continue to grow. As Schumer says, a public health insurance option will be in the bill President Obama signs into law. It’ll take work, but it can and will happen.

Chris Bowers has an update to our Senate whip count proving we have 51 votes in the Senate for a public health insurance option. Senator Harkin concurs. As today made clear, there will be surprises as this debate commences. Senators Wyden, Carper, and Nelson (FL) made clear that they support a public health insurance option, something that we didn’t know beforehand. Who knows what other surprises await us as the push continues.

Today was the first step. Today, Senators voted for the first time on the sole question of the public health insurance option, and a huge majority of Democrats supported it. There is no question that this was a big day for health reform, and it will shape the ground going forward.

About the Author: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

This article originally appeared in Health Care for America Now on September 29, 2009. Reprinted with permission from the author.

The Senate Finance Committee’s health care reform proposal released this morning falls far short of the comprehensive reform that would provide working families with the quality and affordable health they desperately need, say health care advocates.

In a statement this morning, outgoing AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says the bill

“fails to meet the most basic health care needs of working families and it fails to meet the expectations we have set for our nation.”

The labor leaders say the Finance Committee bill’s reliance on so-called health care co-ops as an alternative to a public option

fails to put pressure on private insurers to control health care costs. There is no history or logic behind the claim that health care co-ops would provide real competition for the giant private insurers that have a stranglehold on health coverage today.

While the bill’s main author, committee chairman Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.), spent weeks trying to win some moderate Republican backing for the plan, not a single GOP senator has endorsed it. One key Finance Committee Democrat has already announced he will oppose the Baucus bill unless significant changes are made.

Along with dropping the public health insurance option-which is part of the House bill (H.R. 3200) and the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pension (HELP) committee bill-the Baucus bill also taxes some health plans and individuals who fail to buy private insurance, while providing no penalties to irresponsible employers who do not provide coverage.

While taxing group plans that may have higher costs because the plans cover older workers, workers with worse than average health histories or who simply live in higher cost areas, it imposes no taxes high cost individual plans.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), a long-time advocate of health care reform, says because the bill abandons the public health insurance option-among other objections–

there is no way in present form I will vote for it. Therefore, I will not vote for it unless it changes during the amendment process by vast amounts… I am putting down a marker, which I think others should put down, too, who might feel the same way I do.

There are, some provisions in the bill that do provide important insurance industry reforms and improvements in how health care is delivered and paid for with a focus on quality over quantity. But say the AFL-CIO leaders

But the proposal’s strong points are nowhere near sufficient to outweigh its problems. However well intentioned the attempts at bipartisanship, the final product reflects the bankrupt policies of the past more than the forward-looking policies needed to drive meaningful health care reform.

We are counting on finance committee Democrats to fix the bill and side with working families, not insurance companies.

The Finance Committee is scheduled to begin mark-up of the bill-when improving amendments can added-next week. The Senate HELP committee has approved its version and action on the House legislation is expected later this month.

About the Author: Mike Hall is a former West Virginia newspaper reporter, staff writer for the United Mine Workers Journal and managing editor of the Seafarers Log. He came to the AFL-CIO in 1989 and has written for several federation publications, focusing on legislation and politics, especially grassroots mobilization and workplace safety. He carried union cards from the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers, American Flint Glass Workers and Teamsters for jobs in a chemical plant, a mining equipment manufacturing plant and a warehouse. He’s also worked as roadie for a small-time country-rock band, sold blood plasma, and played an occasional game of poker to help pay the rent. You may have seen him at one of several hundred Grateful Dead shows. He was the one with longhair and the tie-dye. Still has the shirts, lost the hair.

This article was originally published in AFL-CIO blog on September 16, 2009. Re-printed with permission from the author.

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(The following post is part of our Taking Back Labor Day blog series. Many people view Labor Day as just another day off from work, the end of summer, or a fine day for a barbecue. We think that it’s a holiday with a rich history, and an excellent occasion to examine what workers, and workers rights activism, means to this country. Our Taking Back Labor Day posts in September will do that, from a variety of perspectives, and we hope you’ll tune in and join the discussion!)

*****

President Obama’s well-received health reform speech not only boosted public support for reform, but helped fire up much of the progressive base—despite his failing to draw a firm line in the sand on the public option.  

Yet as Mike Lux, co-director and CEO of Progressive Strategies, pointed out Thursday on the Web radio show I co-host, “The D’Antoni and Levine Show,” Obama accomplished a key goal of inspiring progressives, including influential labor leaders, to push harder for reform—while starting to recapture the “narrative” about healthcare back from the right-wing.

Lux observed: “In order to get big pieces of legislation passed, you have to have people who are pumped, ready to go, fired up, willing to knock on doors. He was having trouble generating that. People were confused and down in the mouth. But the speech did what he needed to do and did it in a big way.

More sparks for a reform drive are expected to start this weekend, when the AFL-CIO begins its convention, and Obama appears before them next week, following up on his fiery Labor Day rally appearance and Wednesday’s congressional speech.

Before the president’s address to Congress, Lux added, “we never really had control of the narrative. Obama, for all his eloquence, had trouble laying out a story of what was wrong and why he wanted it changed. In order to tell a compelling story, you have to tell who the villains are, and he’s not very good at that. We never really had a story being told that people could latch on to, understand and get excited about.”

“We now have that,” Lux said on Thursday about the President’s messaging. “Last night, he went after insurance companies in a big way, and went after people lying about the plan, and called them out in a big way. And now have a narrative we can take to people.”

(Of course, long before the speech, many activists in the union movement have been working hard for healthcare reform — an issue that’s now become a legislative priority ahead of the Employee Free Choice Act — but the speech can reignite their fervor while broadening the range of people involved in grass-roots activism.)

Meanwhile, insurance industry executives continue to play their part as villains: a new report by the California Nurses Association shows that up to 40 percent of claims are denied in California insurance companies, making those profit-driven bureaucrats part of the real “death panels.” On Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! show this week, she highlighted the nursing association report and featured an interview with a mother, Hilda Sarkisyan, whose daughter died after she was initially denied a liver transplant by CIGNA, which has a 33-percent claim rejection rate so far this year. After a massive public campaign, the insurance company finally relented, but it was too late:

HILDA SARKISYAN: Well, we miss her. We don’t have our beautiful daughter with us anymore. And CIGNA is doing this every day, every day. And that’s why I’m out there to help other families to stop them. It’s not only CIGNA; it’s all the insurance industry, that they are placing profit before patient, and it’s not right…You know, they should not enforce the care of the people to their deep pockets. It’s all about their pocket, all about the CEO, how much he makes. I miss my daughter. I had a beautiful, perfect daughter. I don’t have her anymore. I don’t.

AMY GOODMAN: Hilda, describe what happened to your daughter.

HILDA SARKISYAN: Well, we had insurance. We were covered. We thought we had insurance. So it’s like having insurance and not having insurance is the same thing. People who have insurance and don’t have it, they get the same care. But having insurance and knowing that you do have it, and you are recommended to a certain hospital, because the insurance company only pays if you go to that hospital, you go to that hospital, which in our case was UCLA. We were transferred there. By the way, that’s our fourth hospital within, I would say, three years, because they were jumping us around. And finally, you go there. My son gave her the perfect bone marrow transplant, perfect match. And my daughter needed a liver transplant. And so many requests, so many requests, and they were—the doctors were denied. We were denied, until the California Nurses Association stepped in, helped us out.

We had to get out and go to their headquarters in Glendale, make a scene with our family, the Armenian Youth Federation, our church. Why do we have to do that? I’m a mother who should have been next to my daughter. Only if I knew she was going to die that same day, you think I would have that energy to go out there and do that? I could have been holding my daughter’s hand and praying with her. This is not right.

With his speech to Congress last night, President Obama re-energized the forces for reform and has set a clear path for victory. We’re going to do our part and hold Congress accountable – the time has come for Congress to put people above profits and enact real health care reform. We’re also going to pull out all the stops to take on the insurance industry. The President’s right – ‘The time for games has passed – now is the season for action.’

President Obama made clear his support of a public option, which is just that – an option that will help improve quality, lower costs and keep the insurance companies in check.

Labor Day marches and rallies capped off more than a month of an incredible union member mobilization to move the health care reform debate beyond the screaming diatribes and disruptive tactics by opponents that marred the start of the congressional recess.

During the weekend, some 150,000 union members turned out for rallies, parades and picnics that not only celebrated the workers’ holiday, but showed broad support for comprehensive health care reform.

Those events followed the more than 400 August town hall meetings, health care forums and other events where more than 24,000 union members spoke up for health care and wrote letters, made phone calls and went door to door to educate their neighbors.

Senator Kennedy’s legacy cannot be defined within one issue, no matter how important. But it would not be an understatement to say that his life’s work revolved around health care for all. He said so himself, calling it “the cause of [his] life” in a passionate Newsweek op-ed published just last month.

True to form, Kennedy turned his passion into real results. The list of health care legislative accomplishments he was part of is stunning. From the website set up by his family dedicated in his honor:

• In 1966, Kennedy helped establish the community health center model in the United States. Community health centers are now serving 20 million low-income Americans around the country.
• In 1985, Kennedy led the fight to enact COBRA, giving workers the ability to purchase health care through their employer after they have been let go from their job.
• In 1996, Kennedy co-sponsored HIPPAA, which now ensures access to health care coverage for an estimated 25 million Americans who move from one job to another, are self-employed or have pre-existing medical conditions.
• In 1997, Kennedy was instrumental in passing the CHIP program that gives health care to millions of children.
• In 2006, Kennedy passed the Family Opportunity Act, which provides states with the opportunity to expand Medicaid coverage to children with special needs, giving low- and middle-income families with disabled children the opportunity to purchase health coverage under Medicaid.
• From 1997-2008, Kennedy helped grant Massachusetts the Medicaid waivers it needed to pass its state health care reform plan.
• In 2008, Kennedy enacted legislation to reform the inequities in the way mental health and substance use disorders are treated by the insurance industry, a 10 year battle.
• And finally, in 2009 under his leadership and the leadership of his close friend, Senator Chris Dodd, Kennedy passed the Affordable Health Choices Act – which would give everyone in America a guarantee of quality, affordable health care – through the Senate committee he chaired, the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. The bill awaits a vote by the Senate as the health reform process moves forward.

Senator Kennedy’s towering vision for health care was built on his numerous accomplishments. While there is sadness in knowing Senator Kennedy won’t be with us to see his life’s work completed, we will keep him in our thoughts as our fight continues and we finally achieve quality, affordable health care for all this year.

About the Author: Jason Rosenbaum is a writer and musician currently residing in Washington D.C. He is interested in the intersection of politics and culture, media consolidation issues, and making sense out of our foreign policy disasters. He currently works for Health Care for America Now and he is also the webmaster for The Seminal.

This article originally appeared on the Health Care for America NOW! Blog on August 27, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the author.

In the coming days, many great eulogies of Ted Kennedy will be written. Many will offer personal anecdotes about what a great man he was. I do not intend to write one here.

I have no great anecdotes or personal stories to tell about how Ted Kennedy directly touched my life. I meet the man once briefly in passing while walking in the U.S. Capitol.

I did however lose an older brother, far too young, much as Senator Kennedy did. Anyone who has ever lost an older brother understands the intense pressure that the surviving younger brothers to live up to the legacies of their older brothers. Its an inescapable burden.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about my brother. I find myself wondering often what my brother would do if he were still alive. He died at the young age of twenty one of leukemia far before he could develop into the type of activist that I am today. He never got the chance to fight for working people the way that I so luckily have.

Ever since I turned twenty-one, I have treated every day like it was one extra day and cherished it. It has made me want to get up in the morning and worker harder and be smarter because I feel so lucky to be alive. I feel that to not work as hard and diligently as I possibly could would be a disservice to my brother’s legacy. My brother’s legacy serves as a constant source of inspiration for some of the darkest hours and toughest fights.

Senator Kennedy cited his brother’s legacy too in passing health care reform with a public option out of his committee earlier this year. In his statement he said:

“This room is a special place. In this room, my two brothers declared their candidacy for the presidency. Today, the nation takes another major step toward reaching the goals to which they dedicated their careers, and for which they gave their lives. They strived, as I have tried to do, for a fairer and more just America — a nation where every American could share fully in the promise of quality health care.”

America has lost an older brother in the death of Ted Kennedy. We must all be fortunate that we are still alive and around to fight to make a public health insurance plan available for all Americans that Ted would have loved to fight for. We must work harder for the things that we believe in. If Ted were still alive today, he would be fighting like hell for the public health insurance option that he considered a fundamental human right.

Lets fight for my brother too. He died tragically and far too young. His death shocked my family. Fortunately, my father was a member of a union and the union provided us with excellent health care. In the closing days of my brother’s lives, we did not have to worry about medical bills. We spent them enjoying the company of my brother, Jeremy.

Every American deserves the same type of high quality health care that my brother, Jeremy, had in the closing days of his life. There is no reason why people in the richest country on the planet should have to suffer because their only crime was being too poor to afford quality health care.

Let’s fight like hell for the public health insurance plan that Senator Kennedy so dearly fought for in the closing days of his life.

My deepest condolences to the friends and family of Senator Kennedy.

I hope that Ted is in heaven now finally reunited with his brothers as I hope to someday be reunited with mine.

About the Author: Mike Elk is a third-generation union organizer who worked previously for the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers (UE). Currently, he works at the Campaign for America’s Future in Washington, D.C. Additionally, he has worked as a staffer on the Obama-Biden Campaign and conducted research on worker owned cooperatives at the Instituto Marques de Salamanca in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. When Mike is not reading twenty blogs at a time, he enjoys jazz, golden retrievers, and playing horseshoes.

This article originally appeared in Campaign for America’s Future on August 26, 2009. Reprinted with permission by the author.

The active participation of union members is changing the tone of the health care reform town hall meetings going on now during the August congressional recess. What began as forums for anti-Obama propaganda are now becoming platforms for real debate over what kind of reform is needed.

Much of the credit goes to union members who have mobilized to take back the town halls from the campaign of misinformation being waged by extremist groups, some backed by corporate donors and fueled with talking points from extremist Republicans.

Even the stalwart conservative newspaper, The Washington Times, had to admit that union members are making a difference in the tone of the town halls. In today’s edition, the Times says:

Members of the nation’s labor unions have made up a hefty segment of the audiences that flocked to town halls Mr. Obama held in the past week, and they have played an even larger role in a nationwide campaign for an insurance overhaul. Financially, and with boots on the ground, unions have become the backbone of the president’s effort.

The Times quotes Troy Goodson, a member of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 969 in Grand Junction, Colo., who explained why health care reform is needed. Goodson, 55, said he has triplets at home, and their hospital delivery costs alone would have left him underwater financially had he lacked adequate insurance. He said he’s glad to see union members out in force, pushing for the president’s plan.

He told the Times:

The big corporations and the insurance industry, they’re lobbying 24/7. Someone has to fight against that.

And we are fighting back in a big way.

When President Obama held a town hall meeting in Helena, Mont., the crowd inside reached about 1,300, many of them union members. Outside, another 1,100 people rallied for and against reform. The Montana State AFL-CIO reports that 700 of the 1,100 were union members and pro-health care reform supporters, outnumbering opponents by about two to one.

Montana union members came by bus from Missoula, Billings and Great Falls to the town hall, followed in each case by long car pool caravans. One caravan came from Havre, which is on the Canadian border, about a five-hour drive away from Helena.

In Mason City, Iowa, between 50 and 60 people were turned away from a health care reform town hall meeting hosted by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) because of fire code concerns. So many people came to the meeting that they couldn’t all fit into the room where the town hall was scheduled.

That was not the case in Nashville, Tenn., where only one anti-health care reform opponent showed up at a protest on Friday. According to the Associated Press, Tom Kovach, state director of America’s Independent Party, said he’d hoped to see at least 50 people at the protest.

Instead, the only company he had was a handful of reporters and a few passing joggers. Kovach acknowledged that Friday was school students’ first day back and that protesters may have wanted to be “cautious,” considering the group was criticized for protesting near the school.

In Nebraska, some 40 people rallied in downtown Omaha Saturday afternoon to show their support for health care change. The rally was part of AFSCME’s “Highway to Health Care” tour, which will stop in 21 cities over three weeks. It was organized by AFSCME and the AFL-CIO. The tour also traveled to the state capitol in Lincoln on Sunday.

It seems that anti-worker forces are not only using the town halls to oppose health care reform but also are taking aim at the Employee Free Choice Act. The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) has sent out a list of town hall meetings and is encouraging its members to show up and speak out against the bill, which, according to NAM, says “that any version of the [Employee Free Choice Act] is unacceptable to manufacturers.”

James Parks: My first encounter with unions was at Gannett’s newspaper in Cincinnati when my colleagues in the newsroom tried to organize a unit of The Newspaper Guild. I saw firsthand how companies pull out all the stops to prevent workers from forming a union. I am a journalist by trade, and I worked for newspapers in five different states before joining the AFL-CIO staff in 1990. I also have been a seminary student, drug counselor, community organizer, event planner, adjunct college professor and county bureaucrat. My proudest career moment, though, was when I served, along with other union members and staff, as an official observer for South Africa’s first multiracial elections.

This article originally appeared on the AFL-CIO Blog on August 19, 2009 and is reprinted here with permission from the source.

Washington Post’s Daily Dose Blog adds more fuel to the health care reform debate:

The Department of Health and Human Services put a spotlight on that practice Tuesday in its continuing campaign to build support for an overhaul of health insurance.

“When a person is diagnosed with an expensive condition such as cancer, some insurance companies review his/her initial health status questionnaire,” the HHS said in a posting at HealthReform.Gov. In most states, insurance companies can retroactively cancel individuals’ policies if any condition was not disclosed when the policy was obtained, “even if the medical condition is unrelated, and even if the person was not aware of the condition at the time.”

“Coverage can also be revoked for all members of a family, even if only one family member failed to disclose a medical condition,” HHS said.

The department cited recent research by the staff of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which found that three large insurers rescinded almost 20,000 policies over five years, saving $300 million in medical claims.
At least one insurer included such savings in an employee performance evaluation.

I teach a case in employee benefits law class, McGann v. H&H Music (5th Cir. 1992), that describes a similar practice to this. Unfortunately, the court in McGann found that the participant could not prevail under an ERISA Section 510 retaliation claim when his coverage was dramatically reduced (1 million to $5000) when he told his employer he had AIDS.

Maybe I’ll just start counting reasons why health care reform is a necessity and that health insurers cannot continue to exist in a world with little regulation and even less meaningful remedies against them for this type of disturbing conduct.

The employee performance part can be filed under “truly disturbing.”

Paul Secunda: Paul Secunda joined the Marquette University Law School as an associate professor of law in the summer of 2008. He teaches employment discrimination, employee benefits, labor law, employment law, civil procedure, and seminars in special education law, global issues in employee benefits, and public employment law. Professor Secunda is the author of nearly three dozen books, treatises, articles, and shorter writings. He is also the author, along with Rick Bales and Jeff Hirsch, of the treatise, Understanding Employment Law, along with Sam Estreicher and Rosalind Connor, of the case book, Global Issues in Employee Benefits Law, and of the Teacher’s Manual to the 14th Edition of the Cox, Bok, Gorman & Finkin Labor Law casebook.Professor Secunda is a frequent commentator on labor and employment law issues in the national media and has written numerous columns and op-eds for the National Law Journal and Legal Times. He co-edits with Rick Bales and Jeffrey Hirsch the Workplace Prof Blog, recently named one of the top law professor blogs in the country, which is part of the Law Professors Blog Network.

This article originally appeared on Workplace Prof Blog and is reprinted here with permission from the author.