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Senate Votes to Proceed with Health Care Debate |
The Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act currently:
- Requires employers, with at least 50 full time employees, that offer no health coverage to pay a penalty of $750 per employee, if one or more full-time workers qualify for a government subsidy in the health insurance exchange. The AFL-CIO union movement continues to press for a full employer mandate covering all workers in all firms, but this at least creates a serious penalty for free rider employers.
- Would cover 94 percent of Americans while reducing the deficit by $130 billion over the next 10 years.
- Includes a public insurance plan option that will help bring down costs by keeping insurance companies honest and forcing them to compete. The inclusion of the public option in both the House and Senate bills shows that Members of Congress believe the public option is an essential part of any final health care legislation.
- Would also hold insurance companies accountable by ending the practice of denials and raising premiums because of preexisting conditions or gender.
- Includes a provision that will cut the rate of growth in Medicare spending in half, according to the Congressional Budget Office, through a powerful new Medicare Commission. Besides being a strong mechanism for controlling Medicare costs, the Commission will set a path that private purchasers can, and likely will, follow to control private health care spending.
But as Trumka noted, the bill needs work, especially its provision taxing the benefits of middle-class families:
The Senate bill’s strong cost cutting measures go further than any previous legislation. But the bill must be improved in important areas. The employer responsibility provision should be expanded to cover all employers. And any plan to tax working families’ benefits should be eliminated — taxes on the middle class are the wrong way to pay for health care.
Get Your Socks On: Help Children With AIDS |
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Some 2 million children are living with HIV/AIDS worldwide, and 1,000 more become infected every day. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) is teaming up with the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and the producers of the fun children’s DVD “Sockville—A New Pair of Socks” to help fight pediatric HIV/AIDS.
For every DVD purchased at a special $9.99 price, $3 will go to the Elizabeth Glaser Foundation, CWA’s charity of choice for nearly 20 years. The foundation is a global leader in efforts to raise awareness, prevent HIV transmission and expand life-saving treatment to HIV-positive children around the world.
Click here to buy the DVD at this special rate and help children with AIDS. This special offer is only good until Dec. 15, 2009.
State, Local Budgets Tanking, Need Help Fast |
With official unemployment at 10.2 percent, creating new jobs is a critical part of any economic recovery. But huge state and local budget shortfalls caused by the nation’s economic crisis will make joblessness worse unless state governments receive massive amounts of aid, according to a new report.
The report by Ethan Pollack, an Economic Policy Institute (EPI) policy analyst, says the recession has led to much lower tax revenues for state and local governments. Unlike the federal government, state and local governments must balance their budgets by law. So state and local policymakers are cutting spending and raising taxes, steps that will lead to lower consumer demand and more unemployment.
At an EPI forum yesterday to release the report, Trenton [N.J.] Mayor Douglas Palmer said mayors and governors could use additional federal stimulus money to create jobs now, improve the nation’s infrastructure and help small businesses—all of which would have lasting economic and environmental benefits.
Bipartisan Report Shows U.S. Must Move Aggressively on China’s Illegal Acts |
The 2009 report to Congress by the bipartisan U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) is a call to action for the United States to move aggressively against China’s illegal moves in the global economy and to create an industrial strategy to rebuild our manufacturing base, several experts said today.
During a telephone press conference sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future, Carolyn Bartholomew said China has developed a plan to build national wealth and increase its power and influence in the world and the United States has not.
Working America, Union Members Deliver for Health Care Reform |
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In Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Delaware, Arkansas and Indiana this week, Working America members and union volunteers are sending a message to their senators: You need to pass real health care reform.
Working America and union members delivered thousands of handwritten letters to senators in these key states. On Tuesday in Louisiana, Wednesday in Arkansas and yesterday in four other states, these activists brought more than 15,000 letters to their senators in support of health care reform that expands coverage, doesn’t raise costs for middle-class families because it doesn’t tax their benefits and includes a public health insurance option to help hold insurance companies accountable.
You can join the fight and demand a Senate debate on health care reform here.
Join Tweet-a-Thon and Expose the Chamber of Commerce Friday |
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Get set to join a tweet-a-thon Friday, at 10 a.m. EST, to help launch the #notmychamber campaign spearheaded by the worker advocacy group, American Rights at Work.
If you are on Twitter, starting at 10 a.m., sign the organization’s “Not My Chamber” act.ly petition at http://act.ly/1cc or by tweeting: RT @araw petition @chamberpost: The U.S. #Chamber doesn’t represent me. It’s Not My Chamber! http://act.ly/1cc #notmychamber (RT to sign!)
If you don’t use Twitter (and can understand nary a word of the previous paragraph), you can sign the “Not My Chamber” pledge here: www.notmychamber.org. Already, 20,301 people and 3,102 business owners have signed the pledge.
The Rich Are Different. They Have Jobs |
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Goldman Sachs, one of the Wall Street firms that got the H1N1 flu shot well ahead of millions of America’s school children, sent this health tip in a memo to its pampered, out-of-touch execs: “Resist the urge to open your own car door; let your driver do it.”
Yo, Jeeves. While you’re at it, dust around the edges of those massive CEO pay packages. Because according to a report released today by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), top executives at four companies that jettisoned their employee pension plans received $49.5 million in retirement and severance benefits in the years before the companies filed for bankruptcy, while retirees saw their benefits cut by as much as two-thirds.
Yet Wall Street bankers are making that cash flow keeps coming: Yesterday, writes David Dayen, Senate Republicans bowed low before their corporate masters and delayed a move by Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to immediately take up a bill that would freeze all credit card rates, charges and fee increases.
Without Jobs, the Nation’s Future Circles the Drain |
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After he was elected AFL-CIO president in September, Richard Trumka traveled around the country on a listening tour. Here’s one story he heard, which he described this week as the AFL-CIO, along with several key allies, launched a jobs initiative to help get our nation back to work.
Last summer at an event in Ohio, I met a young woman who is facing this crisis head-on. Lacey, who is not yet 20 years old, wants to become a teacher. But after her dad’s factory closed and he was laid off, she had to put off her hopes of attending college to help her parents keep a roof over their heads. Lacey took a job in a school cafeteria—until the state budget got cut, and she got laid off, too.
After months in which she and her father were both searching for jobs, Lacey said she felt lucky to find a part-time fast food job that pays half of what the cafeteria paid. Lacey has more unemployed friends than friends with jobs, and, like a third of workers her age, she’s still living with her parents. Here’s what Lacey said to me that day:
I wanted to be a teacher to help children get the education they need to get ahead. But now I feel like I’m just going backward myself. I’m really scared for the kids my age. We want to work. We need jobs.
Senate Health Care Bill: Moving in the Right Direction |
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Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) officially released the Senate’s version of health care reform legislation, a major step toward the health care reform bill America has been waiting for. The first vote to begin debate on this historic bill could happen as soon as Saturday.
It’s an improved bill from the one passed by the Senate Finance Committee last month. It still falls short of an ideal bill but, like the one passed by the U.S. House earlier this month, it greatly increases coverage, helps make health insurance more affordable and includes a public health insurance option to compete with insurance companies.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says Reid has shown courage and leadership in bringing a good bill to the full Senate. Trumka says the bill is a step in the right direction, because it would cover 31 million people, control costs, include a public option and cut $127 billion from the deficit in the first decade. Trumka notes that unfortunately, while many of the bill’s financing mechanisms are fair, it is still partially funded through a tax on health benefits.
Hundreds in Airline Industry Gain a Union Voice on the Job |
More than 400 flight attendants and 170 pilots now have strong union voices after voting to join the Flight Attendants-CWA( AFA-CWA) and the Air Line Pilots (ALPA) in three elections, recently certified by the National Mediation Board (NMB).
In the latest victory for airline workers, the 300 flight attendants at Compass Airlines voted 2-to-1 for AFA-CWA representation. Compass flight attendant Catriona Bagley, temporary president of the Compass local, says she and fellow flight attendants
look forward to negotiating a contract that will provide security, as well as advance our careers. As AFA-CWA members, we will have a voice at the bargaining table and work alongside management in creating a leading regional airline contract that recognizes our role as safety professionals.
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