Health Care for America Now
New York City Organizing Committee

For Immediate Release
July 28, 2009

PROGRESSIVE TAX PLAN KEY TO HEALTH REFORM
THAT PROTECTS STRUGGLING NEW YORK FAMILIES

New Twin Studies Show that Tax Increase on Highest-Income Earners
Needed to Ensure that Health Care Reform Is Affordable for Most New Yorkers

Advocates Call on NYC House Delegation to Vote Yes on H.R. 3200
Before Leaving Washington for August Recess

New York, NY – As the House of Representatives continues to negotiate their health care reform bill, Health Care for America Now’s New YorkState (HCANNY) coalition today urged strong support from the New York City delegation for the House bill’s proposed income tax “surcharge” on the wealthy and for keeping strong affordability measures intact in the legislation.  The group said that a fair tax plan is the only reasonable means to achieve health care for all, because it would make reform more affordable for struggling New Yorkers.

In a noon event at City Hall, HCAN NY released two studies that, taken together, show that health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable in New York, but that the surcharge, as originally proposed to apply to families making over $350,000 a year, would address the issue of affordability without raising taxes on middle income New Yorkers or tax their health care benefits.

“It’s critical that our New York City Congressional delegation stays diligent in the fight to keep the House bill strong.  We need a strong public option, affordability measures that protect middle-income New Yorkers, and a tax surcharge on the wealthiest Americans to pay for this plan.  We thank our congressional leaders and expect every member of the New York City delegation to vote yes on the House bill before they return for August recess.” Said Pete Sikora, Director of Special Projects, CWA District 1.

“We need to lower health care costs and improve coverage for the majority of Americans who have health insurance, while expanding coverage to the tens of millions of Americans that are uninsured or underinsured,” said Lillian Roberts, Executive Director, DC 37, AFSCME.  “There’s no two ways about it: providing the necessary subsidies for low- and middle-income people to obtain affordable health insurance is going to require large expenditures by the federal government.  In order to make reform sustainable in the long-term, we’ve got to ask the wealthiest Americans -- those who benefitted from the Bush tax cuts -- to pay their fair share.”

“New York had an 8.7 percent unemployment rate as of June, and New York had over 45,000 non-business bankruptcies in 2008, most directly related to medical bills,” said Mark Hannay, Director of Metro New York Health Care for All, who moderated the event.  “Given the weak New YorkState economy, it would be totally unacceptable to increase out-of-pocket costs for low and moderate income people or tax their health care benefits.  We must fund health care reform by asking the wealthy to contribute a bit more to provide economic and health security for all New Yorkers.”

The affordability study, prepared by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), finds that health insurance premiums for New York working families have gone up 97% between 2000 and 2007, a period in which New Yorkers’ median earnings went up only 11%.  The HCAN report finds that health care will become increasingly unaffordable without reform: while the full cost of employer-sponsored insurance now equals 25 percent of median family income in New York that number will grow to 47 percent by 2016 if meaningful health reform doesn’t pass, pricing more and more New Yorkers out of the health insurance market.  (The full report, called “Health Insurance Coverage in New York Keeps Shrinking as Premiums, Family Costs Continue Climbing” is available at: www.hcanny.org.) 

“Affordability is the whole point of health care reform,” said Dr. Greg Dodell, a resident physician in Internal Medicine and member of the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare.  “Reform would be meaningless if my patients can’t afford to purchase coverage or can’t afford to get the care they need once they are covered.  Its like the old adage – an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.  We can spend the money to get health care right today, or we can continue spending more on costs year after year after year.”

HCAN NY also released a second report today by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) finding that a proposal in House health care reform legislation (H.R. 3200) to impose an income tax surcharge on married couples with an adjusted gross income of $350,000 ($280,000 for single taxpayers) would affect only 1.8% of New York taxpayers. Nationally, the surcharge would raise $543 billion to fund health care for all with a high-quality public health insurance option.  (Copies of all 50 state reports, including the New York report, are available at: http://www.ctj.org/payingforhealthcare.htm.)

“The House income tax surcharge proposal asks the richest one percent of Americans to give back some of the tax cuts they received in the Bush years to help fund our most critical domestic priority in a generation: providing all Americans with quality health care,” said Hannay.  “The richest one percent of Americans will have received $700 billion from the Bush tax cuts by the end of 2010. These wealthy Americans can obviously afford to contribute a little bit more to ensure that all Americans have access to quality health care coverage."

Health Care for American Now is the nation’s largest health care reform campaign with over 1,000 member organizations nationwide.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Opening Statement
by Mark Hannay, Director, Metro New York Health Care for All Campaign

Those of us gathered today are all members of Health Care for America Now, a national coalition of over 1,000 national, state, and local community groups and trade unions fighting for quality, affordable health care for everyone in America.  Today’s event is one of hundreds happening across our country as a part of a National Day of Action on health care reform sponsored by the AFL-CIO and Health Care for America Now. 

We are here today to demonstrate everyday New Yorkers’ support for politically-progressive health care reform legislation now being put forward in House of Representatives. Together we call on EVERY MEMBER of the New York City Congressional delegation to SUPPORT H.R. 3200, the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009, now being negotiated in committee.  We want to thank our New York City members of Congress for their important leadership and hard work on this legislation.  Today, we now send a clear message to them that we need every member of congress to stay in Washington, to not give in on weakening the legislation, and to pass the bill through the House BEFORE returning home for their August recess.

We also say to Senator Schumer, who sits on the Senate Finance Committee where reform legislation is stalled, and to Senator Gillibrand that proposals now in development in the Senate to gut true health care reform by not offering Ameriancs the choice of a public health insurance option, and by not requiring employers to “pay their fair share” for health care is unacceptable.  Senators Schumer and Gillibrand must indicate in the strongest of terms to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Finance Committee chair Max Baucus that New Yorkers demand the right to choose of a public health insurance plan, and demand that employers be required to offer health benefits to employees. These two reforms must be included in any final reform bill.

We are also here today to share highlights with you of two new reports that outline exactly why we need Congress to stand strong on two key measures in the House health reform bill:

• Congress must make sure that health care is truly affordable for everyone in New York and America
• Congress must make sure that we pay for reform through a progressive surcharge on the wealthiest Americans

The first report, titled “Health Insurance Coverage Keeps Shrinking as Premiums and Family Costs Continue Climbing”, is from our national coalition, Health Care for America Now. It describes what has been happening here in New York and across America to working families’ ability to afford to obtain and use health insurance during the past decade.  In short, health coverage is rapidly becoming unaffordable to buy and use.  This is a crisis Congress must adequately address as it crafts national health care reform legislation.  Skimping on adequate affordability protections for low and moderate-income families in a reform bill just to meet an arbitrary budget target will not so and is not acceptable.  In a few moments Elisabeth Benjamin from Community Service Society will speak further about what “affordable health care” means for New Yorkers.

The second report, titled “Three Proposals to Pay for Health Care Reform Without Hurting Struggling Families”, is from Citizens for Tax Justice, a national public interest research and advocacy organization that focuses on federal, state, and local tax policies as they affect working families.  This report discusses three specific options for how we as a nation can afford to pay for REAL health care reform, and provide good and real health insurance coverage to all, without causing any additional and undue financial burdens on working and middle-class New Yorkers.  Some of these ideas mirror those proposed by President Obama and Congressional leaders.  We think they are good ideas, and call on Congress to enact them as part of health care reform.

The most important suggestion in this second report is currently included in the House reform bill.  It must stay in as it was originally proposed and not be weakened.  The report found that this idea to impose an income tax surcharge on married couples with an adjusted gross income of $350,000 ($280,000 for single taxpayers) would affect only 1.8% of all New York taxpayers. Nationally, the surcharge would raise $543 billion to fund health care for all, including a new public health insurance option.  Our members of Congress CANNOT agree to give up on this proposal or water it down because they would then be forced to either a) make health coverage unaffordable to middle-class New Yorkers or b) ask middle income American’s to pay more, through a tax on their health care benefits, as is being talked about is some quraters.  Neither of those options are acceptable.  We expect our city’s congressional delegation to stand strong and keep the surcharge right where it started. 

Finally, we are here today to thank our city’s Congressional delegation for the crucial leadership they are providing to move health care reform legislation forward in Congress. Despite the ups and downs of the process in down in Washington, DC over the last week or so, we who are gathered here today remain hopeful and vigilant in the fight for health care justice in America.  Few things are more important to everyday New Yorkers than the peace of mind and financial security that good health care coverage brings – THAT is the change that New Yorkers voted for last fall.

The opponents of reform –the vested special interests and political partisans– are currently engaged in a war against health care reform.  They are throwing their massive resources at Congress to try to stop progressive reform legislation from moving forward.  We urge New York’s Senators and Representatives to stand fast against this onslaught, to continue to fight for comprehensive, quality, affordable health care for all New Yorkers and all in America, and to get health care reform done this year.

Before we get our speakers who will describe in more detail the affordability needs of New York, and who will further discuss our political concerns for our members of Congress, we want to turn first to three everyday New Yorkers who will briefly tell us their own personal stories of why affordable health insurance is important: a patient, a small business owner, and a doctor.  Their stories remind us of what health care reform is really all about for all of us, that true health reform is not primarily about numbers on the government’s budget ledger, but rather about the real people’s everyday lives, and the health and well-being of working New York families.
 

Metro New York Health Care for All - 40 Worth Street, Suite 802, New York, NY 10013 - Phone: 212-925-1829