Unions, corporations & the fight for universal healthcare

The following article appears at TomPaine.com. It references a Wall Street Journal piece written by Andy Stern from SEIU calling for corporate support for single payer. The article is short, but it makes a good point that not enough of the unions themselves are supporting single-payer as the answer to the healthcare crisis. And it's going to have to be Labor, not corporate execs, who lead on this issue.

Push For Universal Care
By Alexandra Walker

While the rest of the world was distracted by the powder keg in the Middle East, the Service Employees International Union's Andy Stern quietly fired an opening shot yesterday in the battle for universal health care.

The movement for universal health care is decades old, of course. But the battle to get corporate America to join it is just beginning. Writing yesterday in the Wall Street Journal , Stern declared the era of employee-based health care over, and made a direct appeal to U.S. business leaders to "make health care their national priority."

With balance sheet after balance sheet showing companies spending more on health care than any other expense, it's hard to believe corporate America isn't already bankrolling an advocacy group in Washington to push a government health insurance program. And yet just last week, the CEO of the company that is arguably most affected by health care costs—GM—arguing against government-run health care, in favor of cost-efficiency and consumer education. ...