TRNN Health Care Series: USW President Supports Single Payer Healthcare

Washington, DC, July 13, 2009 --(PR.com)-- "The health care system in America is broken, absolutely broken," Leo Gerard, President of the United Steelworkers (USW), tells TRNN Senior Editor Paul Jay. "It's the most expensive health care system in the world, and close to 50 million people have no health care, and 50 million have what could be termed inadequate health care, so we're going to be fighting for that."

Later in the video, Gerard says that despite statements by President Barack Obama and Senator Max Baucus about the inviability of a single-payer option in the debates on health care reform, people and organizations should still fight for the single-payer plan.

"I think we ought to be fighting for a principled position that lays out that this is the most efficient health care in the world, and single-payer is a euphemism for a government-sponsored health care. Every other major OECD country has a health care that is sponsored by the government," Gerard says.

He gives examples of government-sponsored health care plans that are already active and successful in the United States as potential predecessors to a single-payer option: Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans' Care. "Let us opt into the Medicare-Medicaid system, let us opt into the [Veterans'] system. Then, let's have real competition. We live in the myth in this country that insurance companies provide health care. They don't provide health care. They provide a vehicle to make profits for insurance companies," Gerard says.

"The only way you can bring meaningful competition, meaningful competition, is to bring a viable public option that people can opt into," Gerard says.

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