Healthcare for All

1199SEIU, with its parent Union, the Service Employees International Union, believes in universal health care. The people of our country should enjoy what our Canadian neighbors and hundreds of millions of our counterparts around the world now have—healthcare insurance as a birthright.

The American healthcare system is broken—46 million (including 8.5 million children) have no health coverage, at least as many are underinsured, the numbers are growing and care is increasingly becoming out of reach. Only a national healthcare insurance system — guaranteed as a right to all, just as public education has been for years—will ultimately solve the crisis.

In New York State alone, 3 million New Yorkers have no health insurance, including over 2 million who work or are family members of workers in companies that refuse to provide affordable health insurance. In Massachusetts, the number of uninsured is 715,000, or 11 percent of the state’s population. In Maryland, approximately 786,000 people, 14 percent of the state, lack health insurance.

The denial of healthcare benefits leads those who are uninsured to postpone or forgo necessary healthcare services, often with tragic consequences.   Employers that do not provide healthcare coverage drive up costs for us all: the cost of treating uninsured workers destabilizes the financial condition of healthcare providers, puts an unbearable burden on states and local governments, and dramatically raises costs for socially responsible businesses that do provide coverage.

This practice cannot continue. 1199SEIU will continue to work to identify solutions to the crisis of the uninsured.

For information on the uninsured nationally, please visit www.americansforhealthcare.com.

In Maryland, please visit www.healthcareforall.com. In Massachusetts, please visit www.massact.com.