Greens, Labor, and Healthcare Conference To Be Held 2/27/11.

By guest blogger David Petrovich

For almost 30 years (the last 12 as executive director for a non profit consumer advocacy) I've worked closely with families who are at-risk of mortgage foreclosure, bankruptcy, and loss of homeownership. Though each situation has its own unique set of hardships, the most common of hardship which precipitate foreclosure and bankruptcy include loss of, or reduction in employment, loss of health insurance, and out of pocket medical expenses. Intangible hardships include the trauma or stress of losing one's job, the inability to pay bills as they become due and then past due, the uncertainty/fear of losing the roof overhead, and the physical and emotional toll these hardships exact upon our health.

Appealing to mortgage lenders who act with arrogance and impunity is a circuitous, inneffective game I call Foreclosure Relief Roulette. Frankly, mortgage foreclosure is a (toxic) symptom of a larger, systemic problem. To curb foreclosure, we need to look at the larger picture.

Our war economy has ten million folks who face foreclosure, 20% unemployment, one in seven who live in poverty, and millions of stressed out folks without healthcare. However, Healthcare industry profits have never been higher, Wall Street bonuses have never been as outrageous, and "too big to fail" banks have never had it so good. What's wrong with this picture?

We need jobs. We need affordable healthcare. In my view, replacing our for-profit healthcare delivery system with a sensible, cost effective single payer system would provide unfettered access to improved healthcare for all citizens (working, unemployed, retired, youth, sick, or healthy) while saving (NJ) taxpayers about three billion dollars in its first year. A single payers system would all but eliminate our fifty seven billion dollar pension funding deficit for health benefits, reduce the costs for homeowners insurance, auto insurance, and workman's comp insurance. Do you hear that Governor Christie?

Implementing a single payer system would jumpstart our economy by enabling small and mid size businesses to operate without the staggering costs of healthcare, and through job creation.

When President Obama used his State of the Union address to tell people to "let him know" if there's a better approach that "will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare and stop insurance company abuses," the Labor Campaign for Single Payer (LCSP), a network of local and statewide union leaders, responded with a letter stating that single-payer system "would be far more cost effective than any of the proposed current reforms based on the continuation of for-profit, market-based insurance."

So what happened? Our corporate-lapdog government, intent on protecting corporate profits for HMOs, and Big Pharma, outlawed single payer thru 2019.

Vermont is seeking a waiver so it can be the first state to implement an improved Medicare for All.

What do labor unions, 18,000 physicians from across the USA, and Vermonters know that we don't?

You sure won't learn much by watching or reading corporate owned media. Except single payer is anti-American, Socialistic, Communistic or whatever the pejorative "ism" du jour.

Get the facts. Attend "Greens, Labor and Healthcare Conference" at the Berkeley Oceanfront Hotel on Sunday, February 27th. It promises to be a fact filled, entertaining luncheon with national speakers, top flight live music, and good food.

Register and you'll also receive, "Sticker Shock: Non Profit Hospital Accounting Practices - A Rip Off Report" an indictment of what's wrong with the business of healthcare delivery.

Email me for details (njdGreen@aol.com) or visit the conference's home page: http://tinyurl.com/6x848w6