FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE July 28, 2009		Contact: Timothy Foley CIR/SEIU Healthcare 212-356-8126 (office) 646-229-1379 (cell) Mark Hannay Metro New York Health Care for All Campaign 212-925-1829 (office) 917-318-5008 (cell)

Progressive Tax Plan key to health reform that protects struggling New York families

New Twin Studies Show that Tax Increase on Highest-Income Earners Needed to Ensure that Health Care Reform Is Affordable for Most New Yorkers

Advocates Call on NYC House Delegation to Vote Yes on HR3200 Before Leaving Washington for August Recess

New York, NY — As the House of Representatives continues to negotiate their health care reform bill, Health Care for America Now's New York State (HCAN NY) coalition today urged strong support from the New York City delegation for the House bill's proposed income tax "surcharge" on the wealthy and for keeping strong affordability measures intact in the legislation. The group said that a fair tax plan is the only reasonable means to achieve health care for all, because it would make reform more affordable for struggling New Yorkers.

In a noon event at City Hall, HCAN NY released two studies that, taken together, show that health insurance is becoming increasingly unaffordable in New York, but that the surcharge, as originally proposed to apply to families making over $350,000 a year, would address the issue of affordability without raising taxes on middle income New Yorkers or tax their health care benefits.

"It's critical that our New York City Congressional delegation stays diligent in the fight to keep the House bill strong. We need a strong public option, affordability measures that protect middle-income New Yorkers, and a tax surcharge on the wealthiest Americans to pay for this plan. We thank our congressional leaders and expect every member of the New York City delegation to vote yes on the House bill before they return for August recess." Said Pete Sikora, Director of Special Projects, CWA District 1.

"We need to lower health care costs and improve coverage for the majority of Americans who have health insurance, while expanding coverage to the tens of millions of Americans that are uninsured or underinsured," said Lillian Roberts, Executive Director, DC 37, AFSCME. "There's no two ways about it: providing the necessary subsidies for low- and middle-income people to obtain affordable health insurance is going to require large expenditures by the federal government. In order to make reform sustainable in the long-term, we've got to ask the wealthiest Americans — those who benefitted from the Bush tax cuts — to pay their fair share."

"New York had an 8.7 percent unemployment rate as of June, and New York had over 45,000 non-business bankruptcies in 2008, most directly related to medical bills," said Mark Hannay, Director of Metro New York Health Care for All, who moderated the event. "Given the weak New York State economy, it would be totally unacceptable to increase out-of-pocket costs for low and moderate income people or tax their health care benefits. We must fund health care reform by asking the wealthy to contribute a bit more to provide economic and health security for all New Yorkers."

The affordability study, prepared by Health Care for America Now (HCAN), finds that health insurance premiums for New York working families have gone up 97% between 2000 and 2007, a period in which New Yorkers' median earnings went up only 11%. The HCAN report finds that health care will become increasingly unaffordable without reform: while the full cost of employer-sponsored insurance now equals 25 percent of median family income in New York that number will grow to 47 percent by 2016 if meaningful health reform doesn't pass, pricing more and more New Yorkers out of the health insurance market. (The full report, called "Health Insurance Coverage in New York Keeps Shrinking as Premiums, Family Costs Continue Climbing" is available at: www.hcanny.org.)

"Affordability is the whole point of health care reform," said Dr. Greg Dodell, a resident physician in Internal Medicine and member of the Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU Healthcare. "Reform would be meaningless if my patients can't afford to purchase coverage or can't afford to get the care they need once they are covered. Its like the old adage - an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. We can spend the money to get health care right today, or we can continue spending more on costs year after year after year."

HCAN NY also released a second report today by Citizens for Tax Justice (CTJ) finding that a proposal in House health care reform legislation (H.R. 3200) to impose an income tax surcharge on married couples with an adjusted gross income of $350,000 ($280,000 for single taxpayers) would affect only 1.8% of New York taxpayers. Nationally, the surcharge would raise $543 billion to fund health care for all with a high-quality public health insurance option. (Copies of all 50 state reports, including the New York report, are available at: http://www.ctj.org/payingforhealthcare.htm.)

"The House income tax surcharge proposal asks the richest one percent of Americans to give back some of the tax cuts they received in the Bush years to help fund our most critical domestic priority in a generation: providing all Americans with quality health care," said Hannay. "The richest one percent of Americans will have received $700 billion from the Bush tax cuts by the end of 2010. These wealthy Americans can obviously afford to contribute a little bit more to ensure that all Americans have access to quality health care coverage."

Health Care for American Now is the nation's largest health care reform campaign with over 1,000 member organizations nationwide.