FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:   
Saturday, February 4, 2006

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Lynda Tran, 713-514-0005 office         
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With more than 5,300 janitors set to begin contract negotiations…

Community groups, elected leaders, workers discuss impact of health crisis on working families at community forum

 

Houston -- The day to day struggles of working families without access to affordable health care was the theme at a community forum today attended by janitors, elected and religious leaders, and community organizations at the Latino Learning Center in Houston. Forum participants shared stories about how a lack of health insurance is hurting families and discussed initiatives for addressing the health care crisis and ways to work together to find solutions to the crisis of the uninsured.

"I work hard, but I can't afford to take my kids to the doctor or buy the medicine I need for my diabetes," said Concepción Landeros, a janitor. "It makes me feel terrible that I can't pay for the care my daughters need."

Currently more than one million people in the Houston area are uninsured and another half million are underinsured. Meanwhile, since 1990, 8 in 10 new jobs in Houston have been low-wage, service sector jobs, such as janitorial services, which typically do not provide health insurance for workers.

The high number of uninsured in the region has a significant impact on taxpayers, businesses, and families:

  • In 2003, Harris County public hospitals provided $800 million in uncompensated care-mainly to uninsured patients.
  • On average, annual Texas insurance premiums are more than $1,500 higher than they would otherwise be due to health care providers' need to recover the cost of delivering medical care to the uninsured. By 2010, that figure is expected to increase to $2,786-nearly twice the national average.
  • Approximately half of the 1.46 million personal bankruptcies filed in the U.S. in 2001 were due to medical bills families could not afford to pay. Out-of-pocket costs for those for whom medical bills were the major cause of bankruptcy averaged $11,854.

More than 5,300 janitors employed by the five largest cleaning contractors in Houston--ABM, OneSource, GCA, Sanitors, and Pritchard--are set to begin contract negotiations in the coming weeks over access to health care, increased wages, and more hours.