Health Care
Health care is a basic human right. America’s labor movement has worked for more than a century for guaranteed high-quality health care for everyone. The Affordable Care Act is a historic milestone on this journey, but we still have a long way to go.
America must continue moving forward toward a more equitable and cost-effective health care system. Moving forward means working with employers to demand health care payment and delivery reforms to control costs, allowing people of all ages to buy into the equivalent of Medicare through a public plan option and allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Of course, the most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality health care is through the social insurance model (“Medicare for All”), as other industrialized countries have shown.
The worst thing we could do is move backward by repealing the Affordable Care Act or its key provisions; privatizing Medicare or turning it into a voucher program; raising the Medicare eligibility age; increasing Medicare co-pays and deductibles or otherwise cutting Medicare benefits; or taxing employment-based health care benefits.
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Actors' Equity Association has issued a study examining the role of public arts funding in diversity, equity and inclusion in the theatre industry. This report profiles positive examples of arts funding that engenders greater diversity, including the New York State Council on the Arts.
Columbia student workers are still on strike in what is currently the largest such action in the country. Three thousand workers, including undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are now in the seventh week of their strike.
We know that unions promote economic equality and build worker power, helping workers to win increases in pay, better benefits, and safer working conditions. But that’s not all unions do. Unions also have powerful effects on workers’ lives outside of work.
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Columbia student workers are still on strike in what is currently the largest such action in the country. Three thousand workers, including undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are now in the sixth week of their strike.
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Columbia student workers are still on strike in what is currently the largest such action in the country. Three thousand workers, including undergraduate and graduate teaching and research assistants at Columbia University, are now in the fifth week of their strike.