Maine AFL-CIO President's Lunch to Feature Discussion on Protecting and Expanding Medicare — July 17

Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney will be hosting a luncheon from noon to 12:50 pm on Wednesday July 17 featuring a presentation and discussion with Rose Roach, National Coordinator, Labor Campaign for Single Payer at 21 Gabriel Drive in Augusta and on Zoom. Union members and allies are invited. Lunch will be provided for those in person. Register here to attend via Zoom.

PLEASE RSVP by Friday July 12 to eric@maineaflcio.org and let us know if you will attend in person or by Zoom.

Medicare was created in 1965 as a public good to provide a national health care system for seniors and the disabled in the United States and has proven to be our most efficient and effective public health care program. Currently insurers and Wall Street are fiercely lobbying to gain a larger share of the soon-to-be $1.6 trillion of annual Medicare spending by further privatizing Medicare and turning it into a profit center.

This presentation and discussion will review current threats to Medicare, discuss the role of Medicare Advantage and other privatized for-profit plans within Medicare and talk about labor’s crucial role in the ongoing struggle to win a Medicare for All system.

As the only industrialized nation in the world that links access to healthcare with employment, labor has had a long and tortured relationship with negotiating healthcare “benefits." The reality is that access to healthcare shouldn’t be a term and condition of employment, it should be recognized as a human need. Health is public and should be treated like a public good, not a consumable good, we don’t consume health. Allowing the bosses to control our access to healthcare has become a weapon they use in the class warfare we’re engaged in, using access to healthcare to divide and conquer workers, pitting us against each other over something so innate to who we are as humans.

It’s time for labor to call the question, is healthcare a negotiable benefit or a human necessity? Are we truly able to negotiate healthcare at the table?  Let’s forever guarantee healthcare and begin to build a labor movement that recognizes healthcare as a right and take back our power, so the bosses no longer control our access to healthcare, something we all need, whether we are working or not.

Please RSVP if you plan to attend. And you can register here to attend via Zoom.