After Founding Meeting in St. Louis ... Labor Unions Vow Stepped Up Pressure on Congress to Support 'Medicare for All' Approach to Healthc...(at's single payer. Our members ...),Health

"Our members have been active promoting real health care reform in nearly every municipality in California. I am excited about the Labor Campaign's potential to expand this work across the rest of America," said Clyde Rivers, a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council and past president of the California School Employees Association.

"President-elect Obama has invited Americans to join a national dialogue on how to solve our national healthcare crisis. Labor and grassroots activists around the country are responding with a clear and emphatic message - a single-payer plan such as HR 676 is the only way to protect American families from skyrocketing medical costs and the disgraceful denials of care so common in the current system," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee.

"In virtually every contract negotiation, employers are seeking to shift the cost of healthcare to workers, resulting in contentious bargaining and many strikes. For the vast majority of workers without a union, the situation is even more desperate. A publicly financed, national healthcare plan similar to our Medicare system that could efficiently cover all Americans is the only solution that will control costs, increase access and improve the quality of care," said Jeff Crosby, president of the North Shore Labor Council, AFL-CIO.

"Our campaign will promote grassroots labor support for a Medicare for All solution to the healthcare crisis. We will educate and mobilize broad membership support for healthcare reforms that would take basic healthcare benefits 'off the table' and allow our unions to focus on pay, working conditions, and other important benefits in collective bargaining," said Nancy Wohlforth, a vice president of the California Federation of Labor and a leader of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEI
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