About Us
The primary mission of the Labor Campaign for Single-Payer Health Care is to increase and coordinate grassroots labor support for a Single-Payer Medicare-for-All healthcare system in America because we believe that health care is a fundamental human right and that the labor movement must take the lead in the fight for healthcare justice.
We work to pass national legislation such as H.R. 1976 and S. 1804 (the Sanders Medicare for All Act).
We support viable campaigns for state single-payer reforms in California, New York and many other states
We promote a broad educational effort in our unions, communities and among all working people about the single-payer solution to our broken healthcare system.
We stand in solidarity with workers everywhere who are fighting for healthcare justice.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act has not solved our nation’s healthcare crisis. Since it relies on private, for-profit insurance, millions still remain without coverage, face financial stress including bankruptcy and pay more for less coverage. And, because it continues to depend on employment-based coverage to provide the lion’s share of health insurance while, perversely, undermining key aspects of that coverage, the ACA places new stresses and pressures on the ability of unions to negotiate adequate healthcare benefits for their members, retirees and families.
This crisis intensifies the difficulties of all workers struggling to survive in today’s predatory economic environment. Shifting the cost of healthcare to workers under the current profit-driven system is a painful feature of virtually every set of contract negotiations. For the vast majority of workers without a union, the situation is even more desperate. A publicly financed, single-payer national health care system like those in virtually all other industrialized countries is the only solution that will control costs, increase access and improve the quality of care.
We oppose the inclusion of private insurance companies and for-profit healthcare in our country’s healthcare system. Their interests are counter to, and often destructive of, the well being of a vast majority of the residents of our country. A single-payer system is the only way to control costs, effectively reduce overhead spending, guarantee comprehensive health care to all, and remove a significant handicap on U. S. workers in the global economy. We support provisions for the retraining and income support for those workers whose jobs may be made redundant by this essential legislation.
We need to take healthcare off the bargaining table. The only way to guarantee healthcare for every worker is to guarantee healthcare for all. We need to finish the job and make healthcare a right for everyone in America.
The Labor Campaign for Single–Payer Health Care intends to work closely with all other organizations that support single-payer and we will back all efforts to defend and expand the social insurance model that should be the cornerstone of a humane healthcare policy. Winning this fight will require more than an assembly of organizational interests — it will require the building of a social movement around the issue and an uncompromising commitment to “Medicare for All” healthcare as part of a greater commitment to social justice.
This statement was adopted by unanimous vote of those assembled at the LCSP National Strategy Conference, August 22-24, 2014 in Oakland, CA and revised at our 2021 Virtual Meeting.
The Labor Campaign is committed to creating a positive environment free from harassment and discrimination of any kind.