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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Organized labor across the country is now setting its sights on housing costs as rents and mortgages continue to soar
As housing has become a top issue in strikes and protests in recent months, US unions are pushing for change and backing innovative solutions for the housing affordability crisis.
With US house prices and rents rising in recent years, and high interest rates and inflation taking their toll, housing affordability has become a major issue at the bargaining table for US labor unions. Many workers are facing 60-, 90-, even 120-minute commutes to work because they cannott afford to live near their jobs.
Housing has been a big issue in the recent rolling strikes by thousands of Los Angeles hotel workers. In Oregon, 400 Yamhill county government employees went on strike in November because, the union said, “many workers are not able to afford housing”. In the Twin Cities, worker dismay about large rent hikes is fueling plans for a multi-union strike by up to 30,000 workers in March. When San Francisco hotel workers hold contract talks later this year, housing affordability will be a top issue.
Lack of socialized medicine/medical care tied to employment is a bigger issue IMHO.
I don’t know that I agree with that, and I say that as someone with a massive amount of medical debt. Putting someone in a home is more important than getting them socialized medical care. Both are very important, but your health is not going to improve if you live on the streets or in your car. And homelessness is booming.
I absolutely want socialized medicine in the U.S. No question. But homelessness in the U.S. is at record levels. And many of them have jobs, they just don’t have homes they can afford. This is a major crisis.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeless-record-america-12-percent-jump-high-rents/
Exactly. The ACA made it so the homeless could get medical care without going broke. In my state, they’re mostly fully covered if they’ve bothered to apply for it.
However, most homeless organizations still push a “housing first” model because access to medical care doesn’t really make life on the street any better. In fact, being on the street leads to higher instances of needing emergency services. When people have a “home” to go to, you’ll less often needing to be treating them for frostbite in the middle of winter, for example.
A place to stay would drastically reduce the near-constant need for emergency services of this vulnerable population.
I think you put too much faith in the ACA. It’s still insurance — with all the copays, hoops, and “not covereds” that comes with.
People who have huge medical debts lose their homes. People with addiction problems can’t take care of themselves and keep a home. People who have chronic health problems can’t hold down a job without ongoing treatment. Being able to walk into a clinic and get the help you need means that your income can be spent on other things (like food, clothing, and shelter).
housing has always been the biggest problem in urban areas imo because something basic as getting a job is tied to having a permanent adress. applying for freeidical care is fairly easy (i did it a few years back when i held a part time job pre covid), and the health care org still sends me mail, despite myself having a different plan now at a different job. finding a roof over your head just gets progressively worse and theres no immediate signs of it getting better, making it the #1 problem.
I get your point and I agree, but allow me to reframe this dichotomy a little: housing is health care - it literally saves lives. These issues are intertwined, and socialized housing should be part of a socialized health care strategy.
Semantically, sure. Practically and politically, they have to be dealt with as separate issues since they require completely different people with completely different areas of expertise. You might be able to put socialized housing into a socialized medicine bill, but considering how unlikely either of those are in the current American climate, putting them together makes it even more unlikely.
If it’s not bigger it’s the next smaller.
Another thing single-payer healthcare would do is lower the cost of literally all goods and services because it would cut out what is for virtually any business one of their greatest expenses, and that the portion of workers’ comp. premiums they have to pay to provide their employees with healthcare when they get injured on the job.
That premium is itself inflated by the cost of all these insurers and third party administrators jockeying over who is a primary payer and who is secondary and who is a no payer and who gets subrogation from who, who gets setoffs against who, who administers the claims, how they apportion the liability, etc. Fucking get rid of all of it and just cover every person all of the time for any reason. In this context and this line if reasoning it’s referred to as 24/7 coverage, but it means the same thing: single payer. Also right now the costs are artificially inflated by the fact that so many people are uninsured or underinsured, so the medical providers have to charge the insured people three times the price.
It’s insane. My friends: we are already paying the price we’re just not getting the benefit, it’s going to health insurance companies, hospital owners, and large physicians groups.