Over 100 Living Wage Activists Rally For County Health Care Resolution at Courthouse

The Resolution in support of the state-wide Fair Share Health Care plan and a single-payer/universal health care system passed by a 12-2 vote. To view a News 10 Now report on the rally and Resolution, click here.

Background:
Fair Share Health Care is a new plan that requires that employers with more than 100 employees pay at least $3/hour for each worker to cover their health care costs. “Fair Share Health Care helps the people that fall between the cracks,” said Legislator Shinagawa, “These are people who are employed and work hard, but earn too much to qualify for government assistance and also have employers that either don’t provide health benefits or have been increasing the costs of premiums beyond affordability for their workers. Most often, the health costs of the uninsured are shifted to local and state governments causing incredible financial strain to taxpayers at the benefit of large businesses.”

The pending New York State Fair Share bill highlights the fact that “nearly 80 percent of New York’s uninsured are working people and their dependents,” while “employees of large companies are one of the fastest growing groups of New York’s uninsured and account for much of the expanded enrollment in New York’s public health care programs, as fewer large employers offer affordable health care for their employees.” Co-sponsored by local Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, the pending legislation aims to address this issue and is awaiting action by the State Assembly and Senate. In Albany, a recent Assembly hearing on Fair Share Health Care attracted a crowd of more than 900 people. A deadline of June 22nd has been set for the state legislatures to act on the legislation.

The proposed Tompkins County endorsement resolution also supports, in addition to Fair Share Health Care, a statewide single-payer system and a commission to study how such a system can be implemented. The resolution sees Fair Share Health Care as, “a partial, short-term solution to the health care crisis, as a beginning to a better, and still prospective, turn-around to a nationwide, single-payer health care system.”

"The principle that employers, large employers, that are for the most part very profitable, ought to be providing a certain amount toward the healthcare for their employees," said Carl Feuer of the Living Wage Coalition.