A major reason for the increasing controversy surrounding SEIU International has been their lack of commitment to genuine healthcare reform--and in fact their active attempts to undermine and sink patient-centered, single-payer reforms.
Progressive elements in the labor movement (and their own union) have long been aware of this problem, as have healthcare and single-payer activists around the country.
This story is now entering the wider public discussion as SEIU International embarks on new partnerships with corporate America and, all too often, Republican power brokers. We'll take a look, below, at their latest partnership, this one with the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Association of Realtors, to support a bill that hurts patients in the name of increasing insurance corporation profits--and, perhaps, winning employer sanction for SEIU organizing.
...for more background, please visit the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee's new site, ServingEmployersInsteadofUs.
Jeffrey Young in the Hill newspaper this morning unveils the new partnership:
A bipartisan group of senators, with the support of small-business and labor union lobbyists, on Wednesday unveiled legislation they said would go a long way toward expanding healthcare coverage for the largest segment of the uninsured... the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the National Association of Realtors (NAR) to develop the legislation. ...[to] break a deadlock that has stalled past efforts to facilitate access to health benefits for small-business owners, their employees and the self-employed... in addition to the business groups, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has endorsed the bill.
The legislation would combine annual tax credits up to $2,000 per worker for small-business owners and $3,600 for the self-employed with state- and federally based insurance pools designed to spread risk for insurers and reduce premiums for workers.
Please note that these tax changes to encourage more people to purchase private, for-profit insurance products are the basis of the healthcare proposals of both George Bush and John McCain. These policies are widely disparaged by most healthcare reform activists because they further entrench the insurance industry in the delivery of care, will lead to greater profits for the insurance industry at the expense of patient care, and make it that much harder for our nation to ever achieve the guaranteed, single-payer healthcare reform we desperately need.
Here's what right-wing Senator Mike Enzi had to say about the proposal:
Asked about the Durbin-Snowe bill, a spokesman said Enzi "welcomes bipartisan efforts to bring market-based solutions to the health insurance crisis that is hurting millions of families."
"Market-based" health care solution is a Republican talking point that basically means, "let's do everything we can to help insurance corporations and stop single-payer healthcare."
This kind of selling out of healthcare reform is the same pattern SEIU International has engaged in across the country, most recently when Andy Stern put his credibility on the line to help Arnold Schwarzenegger pass a bill, with the support of insurance companies, that would have included enormous public subsidies to insurance corporations and a mandate that all individuals purchase their products,no matter the cost or quality. The California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organzing Committe, along with most of the labor movement in California, healthcare activists and progressive Democrats, defeated that bill by holding it to one single "yes" vote in the state Senate.
Unfortunately these type of partnerships with corporate CEO's and Republicans have become standard business practice for SEIU in recent years, as it looks to get new members through organizing employers instead of workers.
A few other examples:
1. In New York, SEIU and the New York State Hospital Association have long worked together to ensure that the Republicans control the state Senate This is a key reason why New York has not had a single-payer bill passed...bad for patients, but good for SEIU's hospital partners.
2. This post documents SEIU's partnership with Pfizer to sell Lipitor. This is ethically and medically dangerous, as well as representative of the reason that Registered Nurses historically have not wanted to join the SEIU. RNs are patient advocates, and you can't advocate both for patients and Pfizer. One of the other, not both.
3. The Nation documents Stern's partnership with Lee Scott, the CEO of Wal-Mart, in a PR coup for the embattled company, looking to turn around its reputation for denying healthcare to its employees. The author notes Stern crossed a UFCW picket line to appear on stage with Scott, despite UFCW's heroic efforts to organize Wal-Mart workers.
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