Health care

Health Insurance Company CEOs had an average income of $8.7 million in 2006, while 8.7 million children went without health care. This Labor Day, 771,682 people in Missouri will be celebrating without health care (2006 U. S. Census Bureau numbers; 13.3% of the State's population), worrying that something will happen to them or their loved ones.

Even those who are lucky enough to have insurance must face down the demons of rising premiums and co-pays and the very real possibility that they will lose their coverage altogether.

There is no reason why, in the richest country on the planet, that so many people should live without health care. Millions more are losing it every year, while insurance companies rake in record profits.

However, too many of our elected officials have pursued policies that have worsened, rather than alleviated, the pain for working people. It is time to develop a health care policy that works for all.

We need a health care system that reins in out-of-control costs that are devastating working families and delivering untold riches to CEOs. We need to protect the benefits people have won and ensure that everyone in this great country has access to care for themselves and their families.

We need to elect leaders in November who will stand by America's working people and will help fix our nation's broken health care system. We can, and we must, turn around America.

Mark Baker

President

Central Trades & Labor Council of

Cape Girardeau, MO, AFL-CIO