The majority of lawmakers in
New York's legislature actually
support a bill that would change
its healthcare system to a single
payer healthcare system.
It's very similar to
what the bill in California in 2017
was attempting to do.
Since we can't get single payer
on a national level, California
in 2017 thought why don't we do it
statewide, that effort failed.
And now unfortunately, it looks
like this effort in New York State
is set to fail as well.
Not because the lawmakers
are against it, but because there
are two different groups of people
actively fighting against it and
preventing democratic
leadership in the state from even
allowing a vote on it.
So the bill known as the New York
Health Act has passed the state
assembly five times before.
This year the legislative session
is coming to a close with
the New York Health Act stuck in
committee, not even having
received a vote in the Assembly.
So why is that?
What's going on?
Well, as The Daily Poster reports,
advocates say that, under pressure
from both insurance corporations
and, yes, labor unions.
New York legislative leaders
are not planning to hold
an up-or-down vote on the measure
before the legislative session ends
on Thursday.
So again it's a popular bill among
voters in New York, the state
legislature overwhelmingly supports
it, it would easily pass.
But it's being held up in committee
by Democratic leadership in that
state as a result of private
healthcare interests and labor
unions, which Cenk, take it away.
>> Yeah, so look,
again this requires nuance.
Unions are wonderful on so
many different things.
And when they take on big
corporations and they organize,
you get collective bargaining which
you desperately need, okay?
On the other hand, recently
in America for whatever reason, and
I'm going to explain one of the
reasons for you in this context,
unions have supported pro-corporate
positions and that is maddening.
And I guess in a country that has
run away crony capitalism,
maybe it's not that surprising.
And Glenn Greenwald, I disagree
with a lot of what he says
recently, but half of what he says
is still very good and especially
references to his old work.
And he had this theory on
rotating villians on Democrats,
which I agreed with and wrote
about over a decade ago, okay?
And now unions are beginning to do
rotating villains.
So in one state we'll have the SEIU
oppose single payer healthcare and
now in New York, they're the good
guys and they are helping
with single payer healthcare.
Well, when they're the good guys,
I'm super happy to have them,
great, right?
By the way there's one union that's
always been the good guys,
it's the nurses union.
They've been wonderful on
this issue.
They're best fighters on
this issue.
But here we are in New York,
we picked a different union,
this time the teachers.
>> Yeah, the United Federation of
Teachers.
>> [CROSSTALK] Yeah, I want to be
specific, thank you Anna,
United Federation of Teachers.
Because do not lump everybody
together, do not lump all unions
together, etc.
Okay, but in this case, they are
actively fighting against single
payer healthcare and it is swinging
the balance because the Democrats
have complete control in New York.
Yeah, golly gee,
they can't pass anything.
And on this one,
just like in California, and
California is super majority.
And how do they prevent?
And Wolf Park has gone through this
a hundred times on the issue of
money in politics.
And yes, it's almost always the
Democrats now that block progress.
And that doesn't let Republicans
off the hook, they're usually
the bad guys as well, if not more.
But it is democratically controlled
states like New York and California
where they can just pass anything
they want and they choose not to.
And the way that they do that is
they go, well, we all agree except,
golly gee, there's just one person,
but he controls such an important
committee and
he won't let it out of committee.
Well, golly gee,
made it out of committee and
everybody voted yes, but
the assembly leader in California
won't put it up for a vote.
And on the issue of money in
politics, constantly, they
won't put it up for a vote because
if they put it up for a vote,
then they're going to have to say,
yeah, I was lying the whole time.
I actually serve my donors,
I don't serve you at all.
Eric Olson was a local progressive
candidate in California,
he had the best quote on this,
he said we have a super majority,
who are we negotiating with?
We're not negotiating with
the Republicans,
we're negotiating with our donors.
That is exactly right.
And in this case,
why would the unions be against
healthcare for everybody?
Well, there's a very good
reason why.
They claim, their claims
are already terrible, but
there's actually another reason.
They claim, well,
we're already negotiated good rates
for our union members, so we
don't want anybody else to have it.
God, how can you say that?
>> So let me
be more specific because that's not
quite their argument.
What they are arguing and
I don't think it's a good argument,
is that they negotiated healthcare
plans on behalf of their workers
and that required maybe sacrificing
wages to ensure that input.
But here's the thing, so
in the case of the New York City
Municipal Labor Committee, right?
This is the labor committee that's
fighting aggressively
against this effort
to provide single payer healthcare.
They're essentially saying, look,
we're against this unless the bill
is written in such a way that there
are carve-out for our workers.
So just understand that for
a second, they're actually working
against their workers in this
scenario because you would have
a single payer healthcare system
free at the point of service.
You don't have to worry
about deductibles.
You don't have to
worry about co-pays.
You don't have to
worry about premiums, okay?
They want to ensure that their
workers wouldn't get to benefit
from that single payer healthcare
system and would have to rely on
the private health insurance that's
provided by their employer.
Which clearly, based on how
private insurance works,
is nowhere near as good as a single
payer healthcare plan would be.
>> So that's a 100%
right with one caveat.
That caveat is really important
when we get to it in a second.
So following up on what Anna is
saying, so those unionized workers,
you're still better
off under single payer,
that's absolutely true, and
I'm glad she clarified that.
But the public argument that we
negotiated for a system that is not
as good as single payer, but better
than everyone else in this brutal
system, is not a winning argument.
That's an argument saying,
I'm a slightly above you on
the totem pole and I want to make
sure that I stay that way.
Second terrible part of their
public argument is, well,
we already negotiated that.
Now that we have single
payer healthcare,
you know what you would get to do?
You will get to negotiate again and
this time argue for higher wages.
>> 100%, in fact,
it would be way easier to negotiate
higher wages under a single payer
healthcare system because workers
are not tethered to their job based
on health insurance benefits.
I mean, how many people want to
leave, they want upward mobility,
but they feel like, hey,
I can't leave as a result of this
healthcare system, I can't lose
the healthcare coverage.
>> Not only would you
have healthcare for your workers,
you would get to argue for
higher wages, but you also gain
leverage because they can leave
as Anna pointed out, right?
So why would you make such
a terrible argument in public?
Because there's an even worse
reason why they're actually
against it.
Because some of the unions have
insurance that they are providing,
not the employers.
And that's what helps hook people
into unions because
they are generally speaking
good healthcare, right?
So they think, well, then they
might not want to join a union if
they already have completely free
healthcare that gets rid
of the need to use our pretty good
healthcare at the union.
That now, you cannot do that man,
that's in the union self interest.
But that's not in the union members
self interest,
that's not in the workers interest.
It is brazenly corrupt,
brazenly corrupt.
We want to support the teachers so
bad that we supported every teacher
strike here and they
desperately needed those raises.
And here comes their leadership and
their unions saying we don't
want people to get healthcare
because of our greed.
It's unconscionable.
And you really gotta give credit to
and support excellent journalists
like David Sirota.
>> And Julia Rock who wrote this
story in Daily Poster.
>> Yeah, David started Daily Poster
and Julia wrote that story.
And there's others like
Ryan Grim, etc.
Who are progressive journalists who
are unafraid to call out anybody no
matter what side they're on and
that is very rare.
So understand that in New York
if you don't have single
payer healthcare, it was both
corporations, corrupt Democrats,
and yes, unfortunately, some of
the unions who screwed you here.