7556-01 Support Non-Profit Health Care Plan

Home Browse Search

RESOLUTION NO. 75~6-01 BY: Corrigan, FitzGerald, George, Roth, Seelie, Skindell, Smith. A RESOLUTION supporting the Cleveland AFL-CIO Federation of LabOr and A.F.S.C.M.E. Ohio Council 8's call' for a non-profit national health care insurance plan which is publicly financed and guarantees comprehensive and lifetime coverage for all. WlqF~REAS, over 43 million people in our country (approximately 100,000 in Cuyahoga County), including 10 million children, have no health care insurance; and more than 100,000 people lose their-health insurance every month; and WI~REAS, tens of millions more people have impaired access to health care because of inadequate coverage, prohibitively high out-of-pocket costs, services not covered by insurance plans, and limits on lifetime spending; and Wl~REAS, for the great majority of people, health care is tied to employment and workers face an uncertain future as layoffs mount and insurance premium costs rise sharply; and WHEREAS, employers shif~ costs to' workers and limit choice to one or two plans, while insurance companies frequently deny coverage for needed treatment and refuse to cover costs for prescription drags, dental and vision care; and Wl~REAS, employment in the United States has increasingly gone from full-time to part-time work with no health care benefits, which affects a large number of single mothers and lower income workers; and Wl~EREAS, health care should be a fight available to all, not a commodity accorded to some; and WHEREAS, more than 50 million of uninsured and underinsured Americans would be bankrupted if they had the misfortune of being hit with a catastrophic illness; and WHEREAS, other industrialized nations Which provide comprehensive health care to everyone spend 6 to 10% of their Gross Domestic Product, a much lower cost than the 14% that is spent by the U.S. system which leaves s° many uninsured and underinsured (national health care expenditures are projected to total $2~6 trillion and reach 15.9% of the Gross Domestic Product in the U.S. by 2010). WHEREAS, currently our health care dollars - as much as 30 cents of every premium dollar- are spent on administration, market'mg and shareholder dividends whereas less than three cents of every Medicare dollar is spent on administrative costs; and WltEREAS, our' infant mortality rate is higher and our life expectancy rate is lower than every other advanced industrialized nation; and WHEREAS, the United States is the only industrialized nation in the world without national health care; and