Privatization Isn't HIP: Join the Fight to Save Affordable Healthcare for New Yorkers!

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Privatization Isn't HIP:
Join the Fight to Save Affordable Healthcare
for New Yorkers!

Thursday, September 18
7:30-9:00pm
Food provided

6th Street Community Center
638 E 6th St (between Aves. B and C)
Manhattan
Subway: F/V to 2nd Ave/Lower East Side; L to
1st Ave; 4/6 to Bleecker St.

Speakers:
-Clarice Torrence, President, New York Metro
Area Local of the American Postal Workers Union
-Billy Wharton, Coalition Against Privatization
-Tom Duane, State Senator, District 29 (invited)

Sponsors:
NYC Democratic Socialists of America, NYC
Young Democratic Socialists, Coalition Against
Privatization, Progressive Democrats of America -
CD14,and  Democracy for NYC

The New York State Insurance Department is considering
a plan to convert the not-for-profit health plan,
GHI/HIP, into a for-profit company.  Mayor Bloomberg called on
State
Superintendent of Insurance Eric Dinallo to stop the
conversation (privatization), call it "bad policy".
The Mayor's
Office filed a memorandum in opposition to the
conversion
of GHI/HIP, which currently provide health-care
coverage for
93 percent of city employees, as well as many
low-income
New Yorkers.

"GHI and HIP have each provided quality health
insurance
benefits to New Yorkers for more than 60 years," Mayor
Bloomberg said in a recent statement. "The conversion
to a single for-profit entity could increase
health-care costs
by hundreds of millions of dollars, and threatens the
health
and financial well-being of city workers and retirees.
We
don't need city dollars intended to protect
hard-working city
employees and retirees used instead to pad the
compensation of health-care executives. This
conversion
should be rejected."

In a letter to Superintendent Dinallo, State Senator
Tom
Duane has pointed out that "all other states
considering
such conversions within the past five years – Kansas,
Washington, North Carolina, and Maryland – have
rejected
these plans. As with all other for-profit
corporations, the f
oundational legal obligation of [the new company] will
be to
maximize profits for its shareholders. The pursuit of
profit
will therefore be the company's premiere priority,
surpassing
the provision of quality health care services to its
members
as the company's primary goal. This will inevitably
lead to
higher prices for health care consumers and the
cutting of
corners with respect to the quality of health care
services.
If EmblemHealth raises its rates, its competitors are
likely
to do so as well, and all New Yorkers will suffer."

At recent events outside the Superintendent's office,
protesters
have highlighted the negative aspects of the
unregulated
private health insurance system in the United States.
Payments for medical care now eat up the highest
percentage
of household disposable income and premiums have
increased
by 80% from 2001-2006. The privatization of GHI & HIP
will fully
expose 4 million people in NY State to the worst
effects of this
system.

To learn more about the event, please contact Maria
at marisvart@gmail.com.
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