Health Care

Health care is a basic human right.  America’s labor movement has worked for more than a century for guaranteed high-quality health care for everyone.  The Affordable Care Act is a historic milestone on this journey, but we still have a long way to go.

America must continue moving forward toward a more equitable and cost-effective health care system. Moving forward means working with employers to demand health care payment and delivery reforms to control costs, allowing people of all ages to buy into the equivalent of Medicare through a public plan option and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices.  Of course, the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality health care is through the social insurance model (“Medicare for All”), as other industrialized countries have shown. 

The worst thing we could do is move backward by repealing the Affordable Care Act or its key provisions; privatizing Medicare or turning it into a voucher program; raising the Medicare eligibility age; increasing Medicare co-pays and deductibles or otherwise cutting Medicare benefits; or taxing employment-based health care benefits. 

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Workers at the world-famous American Museum of Natural History filed a union petition last week to organize with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) District Council 37, the city’s largest public-sector employee union, which already represented dozens of work

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This week, the Independent Drivers Guild (a Machinists Union affiliate that represents over 80,000 For-Hire Vehicle drivers in New York City) and The Black Car Fund joined forces to distribute COVID-19 home test kits to drivers at LaGuardia and JFK Airports.

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Last week, quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard division Raven Software formed the first union at a major U.S. gaming company, comprising their 34-member unit.

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Click here to order Free At-Home COVID-19 Test Kits. Thank you to our postal workers who are fulfilling, packaging, and shipping these tests across the country!