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Port Washington-Manhasset

US CONCURRENCE PRIVATIZATION UPDATE

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The LWV of Port Washington-Manhasset (LWV PWM, NY), along with the New York State and Vermont State Leagues, asks other state and local Leagues to support consideration of a Concurrence at the National Convention 2026 that would update the current LWV National position on Privatization (2012).  

Quick links to content below:

  • Summary Information
    1. Background
      1. Historical
      2. Today
    2. Rationale for using Concurrence Process
    3. Highlights
    4. Pro/Con on this Update concurrence
    5. League Study of Privatization supporting this Update 
    6. Leagues supporting this Update
  • Concurrence Statement (text to be adopted)
    1. Text of the Proposed Concurrence: PWM Privatization Update
    2. LWV of Vermont position
    3. LWV of US position
    4. Sample example of integrating the Update into the US Position (only a sample; this will be under the control of the US if the concurrence passes)
  • How your League can support this Update initiative 
  • Learn More — read, watch, listen
  • Contact the Team Leading this Proposed Concurrence: LWV.Update4Convention@gmail.com

1. Summary (Materials by LWVUS Bylaws for Concurrence)

Background

HISTORY - Read More

Following the pandemic, the LWVNY Healthcare Committee began analyzing newly introduced health-reform bills focused on privatization. For example, research shows for-profit hospices and nursing homes deliver dramatically worse health outcomes than their nonprofit counterparts, but could League members advocate in favor of such bills? Similarly, there were bills that would remove for-profit Medicaid middlemen from managed long-term care (in patient homes and nursing homes) — potentially saving NYS billions per year, while reducing hurdles to care for NYS patients, and potentially reducing provider shortages, all benefits Connecticut enjoyed (still enjoys) when it deprivatized Medicaid Managed Care in 2012.  

Then NY learned that LWV Vermont, concerned about privatization in Vermont, was studying privatization of healthcare and other common goods (basic human needs, as defined in the US Privatization position) to create a position to allow advocacy on Vermont bills, which it began doing  within weeks of adopting its position in 2023.  At the urging of League healthcare advocates from across the county, Vermont brought its position to LWV Convention 2024.  Although healthcare advocates were enthusiastic about this new position, it allows advocacy for more issues than healthcare alone.  Over 70 local and state Leagues supported concurring with the Vermont Update at Convention 2026.

The Convention sparked discussion and education about privatization, but the position was not adopted. 

TODAY

The LWV of Port Washington-Manhasset (LWVPWM of NY), along with the New York State and Vermont State Leagues, asks other state and local Leagues to support consideration of a Concurrence at the National Convention 2026 that would update the current LWV National position on Privatization (2012).  

The PWM Privatization Update is a shortened version of the Vermont Privatization position (2023); it uses language from the Vermont text to clarify four elements of the national position so state and local Leagues can advocate more effectively, confident that they are aligned with national League  policy in addressing an accelerating trend: i.e.,

the siphoning of public funding (taxes) into corporate profits and away from critical services aimed “to preserve the common good, to protect national or local security or to meet the needs of the most vulnerable members of society.” 

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Read More

LWV PWM shortened and resequenced language of the Vermont Update to focus on four critical issues identified during Convention 2024 post-mortem discussions. In particular, discussion focused on areas of confusion which NYS delegates heard LWVUS staff describe as already supported by the current national position; fortuitously, these also seemed the most useful for advocacy within NYS.

LWVPWM held member education and consensus sessions in 2024 before adopting this Privatization Update position. At the LWVNY Convention 2025, New York delegates overwhelmingly voted to adopt this (new) Privatization Update.

Rationale: Why This Concurrence Is Appropriate and Timely

It is appropriate to amend the LWVUS Privatization position (2012) by concurring with the  LWVPWM Privatization Update (2024) to clarify language or logic of four currently confusing areas. Utilizing the concurrence process will benefit state and local Leagues without requiring additional resources from the national League. Vermont, which undertook the study, has used its updated position in three legislative sessions. New York has used its shortened updated position successfully in one legislative session.  

By adopting (passing) this concurrence, convention delegates will update our national position to speak to current concerns without having to conduct their own studies, create their own study materials, and go through their own consensus meetings.  

Note: the League position on Privatization is not about free markets or capitalism in general — instead it provides guidance to local and state Leagues on legislation and regulation of services that are essential “to preserve the common good, to protect national or local security or to meet the needs of the most vulnerable members of society” — and only those services.

Read More

Over the past dozen years since the national position was adopted, many voices — including public policy analysts, journalists, and Americans who serve the most vulnerable  — have expressed growing concern about the transfer of public services and assets away from public control and the transfer of public tax dollars to investors/shareholders. 

The phrase “privatizing profits and socializing losses” has become a ubiquitous critique as many voices — including public policy analysts, journalists, and Americans who serve the most vulnerable  — have expressed growing concern about the transfer of public services and assets away from public control. The accelerating privatization of healthcare, for example, has increasingly siphoned tens of billions of dollars away from actual healthcare services into investors’ wallets; Americans have become increasingly frustrated by rising costs, premiums, and cost-sharing accompanied by increasing denials of care, delays in care, and degrading of care — trends harmful in their own right but trends that are also fueling increased income inequality. 

But healthcare is not the only common good affected by privatization. 

Public-private partnerships have privatized water, roads, prisons, the military, among other services, leading to torrents of headline scandals at the local, state, and national levels.  The “efficiency” promised by these deals has increased prices, decreased access, degraded quality and safety —  and led to tragic DEI disparities. There have been four League studies of privatization in the last two decades:

    1. Vermont in 2023
    2. US in 2012
    3. Seattle Kings in 2009
    4. Monterey Peninsula in 2007

Adopting this PWM Update will allow advocacy for local and state bills (and regulation) to ensure affordable access to needed services that benefit everyone, particularly poor, rural, and other socially and economically marginalized communities.

Highlights: What This Update Adds

As Leagues seek to advocate for local and state legislation to appropriately address the harms of increasing privatization of the economic domains defined in the LWVUS Privatization position, confusions have arisen about what advocacy the national position allows.  Specifically, the Update makes explicit two areas supported elsewhere in Impact on Issues and clarifies two areas where LWVUS advocacy indicates support for those interpretations.

Specifically, the Update explicitly 

      • Adds “healthcare” into the position’s list of “services fundamental to the governance of a democratic society” 
      • Gives teeth to the position by noting that private entities that provide services in the listed “common good” areas — that fail to serve any or all the public (including the marginalized and vulnerable) — in the way the position requires, can be held accountable up to and including de-privatizing them.  Neither the position nor the Update requires a League to take such action. Instead, it allows League advocacy where a state or local League believes it is warranted.

The Update also clarifies two areas where recent LWVUS advocacy suggests two additional “best practices” be added

      • Prioritizing fiduciary responsibility to the public (rather than prioritizing investor profits) so that every vulnerable or marginalized customer must have access to safe and quality service even if that access reduces profits
      • Opposing further privatization of health care, specifically, since this sector has been so aggressively privatized over the past 25-to-50 years that as many as 60% or more of Americans may now be defined as “vulnerable” — at risk of medical debt, unable to afford care and/or without access to care, living with under-treated chronic disease and disability, and/or dying of preventable diseases.  In contrast to every other developed country, our life expectancy is falling, and maternal morbidity rates remain double or triple other countries.  

Prior concurrences adopted at the national level have included such clarifications, for example, the 2021 Health Care Update included explicit language for support of single-payer funding of health care and for adopting state-level programs in the absence of a national health care program — local and state Leagues been refraining advocacy because the national position allowed confusion over what was supported.

      1. Pro/Con on this Update — https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/18GZwFnXGo0YGM8WZ3OvJdc1x1AJb5Y6a?usp=sharing
      2. League Study of Privateization supporting this Update https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/18GZwFnXGo0YGM8WZ3OvJdc1x1AJb5Y6a
      3. Leagues that have said they support this Update — to come

2. Concurrence Statement (text to be adopted)

      1. Text of the PWM Proposed Private
        https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/18GZwFnXGo0YGM8WZ3OvJdc1x1AJb5Y6a
      1. LWV of Vermont postation
        https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/18GZwFnXGo0YGM8WZ3OvJdc1x1AJb5Y6a
      2. LWV of US postation
        https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/18GZwFnXGo0YGM8WZ3OvJdc1x1AJb5Y6a
      3. Sample example of integrating the Update into the US Position (only a sample; this will be under the control of the US if the concurrence passes)

3. How your League can support this Update initiative — FIVE Actions (#1 and #2 are most important)

      • Have your League support adding this Update to the Convention Program — on the LWVUS Program Survey that will be sent in the next 4-6 weeks and is likely to be due at the very beginning of March 2026
        • Get on the agenda for your next board meeting
        • Provide a brief statement of support and then make a motion (e.g., A local New York League, with the support of NY State and Vermont, is proposing an Update to the US Privatization position and I would like my League to support discussion and voting on it at Convention by adding it to the LWVUS Program Survey that our President will likely receive soon. Our support on the survey does not commit our delegates at Convention to support it.  “I move that we add support for this LWVPWM Privatization Update concurrence to the LWV US Program Survey which we will likely need to submit before the first week of March.” 
        • If your League decides to support this, please contact us ASAP so we can provide precise instructions for the survey. It will need specific language (the same language all other supporting Leagues use) to ensure that all Leagues that support it are counted. Email: LWV.Update4Convention@gmail.com
        • If this year’s survey is like last year’s — and we do not know that it will be — you would type the specific language below into ONE box so they know exactly what you are recommending in the fewer than 300 words allowed per box. (Question numbers are from last year so this year’s may be different.)

 

On the online form, answer Question 7 “yes” so that a new Question 8 appears: “Would you like to recommend another program item, in addition to the Campaign for Making Democracy Work ®?

Question 8 has a box that will accept 300 words

Or use the box for the last question box on the survey:“Please provide anything else you would like to share on Program Planning.”

Please copy this language into box #8 or final box of LWVUS Program Planning Survey

We support including the LWVPWM Privatization Update as a recommended item for program consideration at Convention. Concurring with the LWVPWM Update will clarify the current position without requiring any outlay of resources by either local Leagues or LWVUS and it will support our DEI efforts.

      • Let us know that you have supported it so that we can keep a running tally of support
      • Have your League concur before Convention — and notify us if you adopt it

It depends on your bylaws, but many Leagues can 

        • call for a member meeting 
        • send out readings (available here … folder on Drive, along with education deck/script, facilitator deck, and reporting form)
        • hold a Zoom with education on the concurrence 
        • at the same or subsequent meeting hold a consensus meeting  
        • have the board ratify the members’ decision
      • Promote to friends in other Leagues and to your State League and other local Leagues in your state
      • Research local privatization issues in your League’s footprint and in your state (ask if you’d like some pointers on how to do this to help your League support this AND to let us know if you find something that really matters to you)
      • Learn More — read, watch, listen
        • See explainer video “What Is the Concurrence and Why Adopt It?” presented to LWV Virginia 11/13/25
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  1.  4. Have Questions? Do you have a critical local issue we could share? Suggestions? 

Email: LWV.Update4Convention@gmail.com

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