SEARCH
Democratic Dialogue, Anyone?
With members of Congress back in their home districts this month, union and community activists have the chance to play a pivotal role in winning comprehensive health care reform and to show that support for quality and affordable health care is deep and wide.
Meanwhile, phony grassroots groups and extremist fear mongers are waging a campaign of disruption and shout-down mob actions, backed by an avalanche of health insurance industry-funded, lie-filled ads about President Obama’s health care reform proposals.
The U.S. House already has adjourned for the summer, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says she hopes to have a bill ready for a vote in mid-September. Three House committees have approved various parts of health care reform legislation, and those parts must be merged into one bill.
In the Senate, the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee passed its version of reform earlier this summer, but the Finance Committee still must act. The Senate remains in session this week, although the Finance Committee is not expected to act until mid-September.
As we pursue reasoned dialogue and democratic action—not mob-run tactics—the AFL-CIO union movement is working with allies such as Health Care for America Now! (HCAN!) to ensure big turnouts for town hall and community forums with House and Senate lawmakers.
National unions are asking their local unions to reach out to rank-and file members with letters and worksite fliers, reminding them what’s at stake and encouraging working families to attend town hall meetings and to contact their lawmakers.
State and local union leaders are arranging meetings with members of Congress, telling them not to back down on key health care reform principles, including:
- A strong public health insurance plan to compete with private insurers and give working families a choice of private or public coverage.
- Shared responsibility, including an employer “play or pay” provision.
- Fair financing that does not tax health benefits.
- Cost savings.
- An end to insurance company abuses.
The Alliance for Retired Americans also is mobilizing to recruit members to attend town hall meetings with lawmakers and plans a series of events highlighting the need for real health care reform.
Working America canvassers will be out in neighborhoods across the country talking to families about health care reform.
We will keep you posted on health care reform actions during the congressional August recess.
 |
Become a Fan on Facebook |  |
Follow Us on Twitter |  |
Subscribe to YouTube |  |
Subscribe to Blog RSS | ||||
17 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Talk is cheap.. Time for ACTION. We need Universal Health Care NOW!!!
I must say that you all must not like your healthcare you have now. Yes much can be done to improve on the plans we have now . Like opening up the states borders of plans. Tort reform . Along with many other reforms. A goverment system will only screw things up big time. Have they ever run anything that wasn’t FUBAR?????? I belive in unions big time. It is the only way the workers can get a fair shake against the bosses. But the less goverment intervention we have in our lives the better.
I am amazed by the general lack of knowledge or concern by many of the citizens of our country. First (and please read this at least 10 times). If you like your insurance…you know the one takes more and more of your money every year. The one that is causing companies to lay people off (fire) because they can’t afford to carry a full staff of employees. Which by the way is part of the reason you keep having to do more and more work for the same pay…I should have said less and less pay. Because the insurance companies have been raising the cost of insurance at a rate 300% higher per year vs. pay raises. Also what fantasy insurance do you have where some “Bureaucrats” don’t come between you and you doctor. Did you ever hear of a person needing a vital surgery/implant and being denied. Happens hundreds of times a day all over the country. Who out their feels safe in their job? Safe enough to gamble the health coverage of you and your family? Lose your job lose your insurance no bureacrats to worry about know. Don’t worry I am sure your kid can hold off for a few months if he or she needs chemo. Oopps! No coverage for them…pre-existing condition!! Don’t worry you will be covered. If you found a job THAT OFFERS A GROUP PLAN.You say the GOVERNMENT can’t run anything? How about the military…pretty good last I checked…where would the majority of the elderly be without social security and medicare? How about the water that drips from your fawcett at home should we get the government out of their and privatize that? Get ready to cut down on showers!Some things should not be reservered for the fortunate in a functioning society. I hope this bill passes and I hope those of you who need it or have the foresight to see that you may need it will never have to cut your pills in half again. Good Luck Everyone
It’s comical to see unions, in partnership with criminal organizations like ACORN, complaining about mob rule. Understand, we don’t want your grubby government run health care administered by a new army of worthless, almost impossible to fire, union bureaucrats.
Golden Boy, Acorn is hardly criminal. They fight for people to stay in their homes after being screwed by big corporate banker welfare cheats. Why don’t you get it. Listening to Rush Bimboo too much? In all the facist states they have macho sounding “regular guys” that confuse the issues for the those being screwed by corporate pigs. It works. You are proof.
Once a week a bunch of 10-12 old guys who, with the exception of two who were lawyers, were physicians gather for lunch at Ernesto’s in Portland, Oregon. All of us want a single-player health plan, medicare for all in the United States, including legal and illegal immigrants. We are all human beings. Eugene Blank
Eugene Blank, You are not alone. There are many of us from all walks of life in New Mexico, who are also working for universal single payer. Yes, we are supposedly all human beings but some of us are not concerned about others. All some folks care about is “The unholy trinity: Me, Myself and I.” Saw that on a billboard of a Baptist church in Albuquerque, NM, several years ago.
Contessa Brewer, today on MSNBC, in an interview with Republican hack Ron Cristy equates our nation’s revolutionary founders with these miscreants shilling for the status quo in health care.
Unbelievable!
It’s comical to see commenters like “Golden Boy ” parrot the talking points of right wing propagandists like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Really and Spawn Hannity – attacking community organizers like ACORN.
It’s comical that these brutish thugs repeat the Big Lie that ACORN was involved in some nefarious plot to subvert elections – because ACORN dares to help register poor people and people of color and train them to become active citizens, something the big business conservatives fear more than a Black president.
It’s comical that those who attack ACORN never expressed any concern about actual election fraud perpetrated by supporters of their friend Dubya Bush and his cohorts in Florida and Ohio who helped him steal two elections.
And, yes, we do want our federal government to play a role in the administration of health insurance as it has done for 44 years with Medicare. The savings we’ll see by moving towards a fully public, non-profit system will benefit everyone – except the overpaid CEOs of the insurance companies who “Golden Boy” loves so much.
Do unions and union members always accept the first contract? Don’t they usually send it back for better terms? Sometimes more than once? Just tell Congress and the Senate SEND IT BACK AND FIX IT!
Paul B throws out the race card like the good little Leftist he is. Problem is, Paul B has no idea about my background. Nor does he apparently know much about the criminal charges against ACORN across multiple states for vote fraud. He knows even less about the bankrupt timebomb call Medicare, along with everything else the federal government touches.
You want health care? Pay for it yourself instead of expecting the rest of us to pay your bills for you.
My union insurer decides who my family and I can see, how often we can see them and to what extent they’ll pay. We’ve declined to 3rd string doctors from 3rd rate hospitals.
You want to replace that with government bureaucrats doing it instead? That is somehow better?
Obama has stated that this is the thin edge of the wedge with the ultimate goal being a government run health care taking over the whole ball of wax over time.
Even if you consider that disputable, what is indisputable is the creation of a climate where employers would pay the buyout and end private coverage and go with the cheaper public insurance plan.
I am for ending the abuses that are wreaked upon people by the insurers. I agree that the term pre-existing condition needs to be retired. I am not for further rationing and am totally against the use of any formula that makes age a factor.
This article from the WSWS reveals who is behind the Obama health care “reform” assault on living standards of working people.
US health care lobby pumps millions into Obama’s cost-cutting drive
By Kate Randall
5 August 2009
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/lobs-a05.shtml
In the maneuvering surrounding the effort in Washington to enact an overhaul of the US health care system, the health care industry is pumping in record amounts of cash to the politicians involved.
In the “debate” over health care, key figures on congressional committees are being bankrolled by health insurers, while representatives of hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry are being consulted at White House meetings.
The health care legislation taking shape reflects these interests. Through the so-called individual mandate, Americans will be required to purchase insurance, boosting the already burgeoning profits of the health insurance companies.
Any responsibility for employers to provide coverage will be marginalized, with token penalties for noncompliance. And a government-administered “public option”—if it is indeed even offered—will do nothing to alter the overall trajectory of the plan as far as ordinary Americans are concerned. It will be a cut-rate, class-based system providing inferior, rationed care based on cost-cutting “efficiencies.”
…
While the health care industry’s unabashed wooing of Senator Baucus stands out, he is not alone. The health care lobby gave nearly $170 million to Washington politicians in 2007 and 2008, with 54 percent of this going to Democrats.”
————————————————————————-
JerryWells – I’ve always wanted a Porsche. I worked hard and saved then finally I bought my first new car, a Saturn, at 51 years of age.
Was it class warfare, my lack of achievement or my making other spending decisions that has kept me from my dream all these years?
I’ll tell you. It was the last two.
I love my union health insurance and Medicare but:
We have millions of Americans without health insurance. The government seems to insist on them getting insurance which may or may not be government subsidized. Why the insurance? Give them medical care at hospitals and medical centers and have the government pay for some or all of the expense depending on the patient’s income.
One of the big expenses in health care is frivolous law suits. In addition to the huge financial burden, we are loosing great physicians. Two of my doctors retired because they could not afford to work part time. We must include tort reform in health care reform.
In 1970-78 I had an excellent health care provider. the doctors had no worries of malpractice, they had the last word on all medical decisions, I had no co-pays or deductibles, and there were no millionaire executives or boards of directors involved in the operation at all! where was this plan? It was in the US Army which is run by the US Government!
I would much rather have a government bureaucrat oversee the necessity of a procedure than a Greedy Corporate Executive looking for another million dollar bonus for cutting expenditures!
Who is more worthless, a government worker earning less than $50k a year or a Drug Addicted radio blowhard making probably twice that amount and earning nothing!
I am a third generation Union man and am SICK and TIRED of being lumped in with the radical leftists whohave hijacked our Unions.Why not take the time on healthcare reform to get it right?Do you relly want something most Congressmen have not even fully read?These leaders we have today have done everything in their power to mute true Union democracy,between mergers ,advocating for amnesty over American unemployment,and even EFCA over demanding fair trade legislation. Everyone should look up Uni Global Union,for this the end result Trumpka et-al want.The majority of AMERICAN Unionists understand that our nation has a great standard of living because American Unions worked WITHIN the perameters of capitalism to seek economic justice for the American worker.The loss of market share was due to lack of organizing,not national ideology.Let’s band together to rid ourselves of these Marxist radicals before it’s too late.John Buck formerly of Laborers Eastern Region Organizing Fund NYC,NJ,DEL L.I.U.N.A. now Regional Organizer American Federation of Citizen Union Workers P.A.C.. Support the 2009 T.R.A.D.E. ACT now!