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Health Care Reform

A Labor Perspective

AFL-CIO Department of Employee Benefits

KAREN M. IGNAGNI

AFL-CIO Department of Employee Benefits

From the very beginnings of the trade union movement, labor organizations have wrestled with the problem of how to secure access to quality health care for their members and for working people generally. After successive failures by Congress to enact a comprehensive national health care program, labor unions won the right to collectively bargain over health care benefits. The system of employer-provided health insurance that developed is now in crisis as costs race out of control and employers reduce the scope of coverage, leaving millions of Americans without health insurance. As the Clinton administration moves forward with its promise to overhaul the nation's health care system, the labor movement is working to ensure that the administration's proposal guarantees access to all Americans, keeps cost under control, and includes a progressive financing mechanism that does not place an undue burden on working families.

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