BALCONY Launches Affordable Health Care Petition Campaign

SYOSSET, NY (11/08/2007)(readMedia)-- BALCONY, the Business and Labor Coalition of New York (www.balconynewyork.com), announced today (Thursday) that it is launching a statewide petition drive so that citizen support for affordable health care access for all is manifest. New York State has 2.7 million uninsured and most observers think this growing problem needs the highest priority attention by the state politicians.

After consulting with policy analysts, health care providers, small business owners, advocacy groups, and representatives of organized labor, BALCONY’s Executive Board devised “Seven Principles for Achieving Affordable Health Care For All in New York State.” Once completed, the petition and signatures will be presented to Governor Eliot Spitzer, Health Commissioner Richard F. Daines, M.D., Insurance Commissioner Eric Dinallo, and the New York State Assembly and Senate.

“Today, we are announcing that BALCONY is launching a statewide petition campaign around the Seven Principles to demonstrate the widespread support that affordable access to health care enjoys. BALCONY’s Seven Principles of Affordable Health Care for All include: Universality, Affordability, Administrative Simplicity and Transparency, Adequacy, Efficiency, Quality and the Elimination of Disparities,” stated Alan Lubin, Co-Chair of BALCONY and Executive Vice President of the New York State United Teachers.

“All businesses – not just the largest ones – need to have affordable health care options available to them so that they can provide their workers with health care coverage,” stated Bruce Ventimiglia, Co-Chairman of BALCONY and Chairman of Saratoga Capital Management LLC. “It is estimated that over 1.5 million of New York’s 2.7 million uninsured are employed by small businesses in New York. Providing these businesses with health care plans that they can afford will go a long way toward solving New York’s uninsured issue.”

BALCONY will circulate the The Health Care Principles as a petition at forums it organizes or attends, and encourages its institutional members, like the American Cancer Society and the Medicare Rights Center, to follow suit. BALCONY also has devised an Internet petition campaign that unions such as NYSUT, UNITE HERE, CSEA, PEF, NYS LECET, and RWDSU will use in reaching out to their members.

“The cost of providing medical assistance to 2.7 million uninsured New Yorkers creates a ripple effect that impacts the entire health care system,” stated Alan Lubin. “We must fix a system where the costs of medical care for New York’s uninsured are being paid for by taxpayers and those who are insured in the forms of higher insurance premiums and medical charges."

The BALCONY petition drive was announced at the Access to Affordable Health Care for All Long Island Forum in Syosset, co-sponsored by the American Cancer Society (www.cancer.org), and the Long Island Federation of Labor AFL-CIO (www.longislandfed.org). The Long Island forum features union leaders, small business owners, major corporations, health care professionals, advocates and government officials who are seeking a solution to fixing a health care system that is in dire straits.

For further information, contact BALCONY coordinator Lou Gordon: 212.219.7777, loug@balconynewyork.com or Linda Gross, LCG Communications: 718.853.5568; linda@lcgcommunications.com

-30-