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Ohio Workers Make Voices Heard On Health Care |
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Union members in Ohio made it clear yesterday at two meetings that working people want real health care reform and they want it now. These and other workers are fighting back against the lie-filled campaigns by extremist groups—some funded by corporate donations and backed by extremist Republican leaders who are vowing to kill health care reform.
In Cleveland, most of the 450 people at a regular report to constituents meeting hosted by Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge supported health care reform. Outside the hall, more than 115 union members and health care reform activists drowned out about 25 opponents, some singing in German and carrying signs characterizing Obama as “Adolf Hitler.”
Other signs claimed reform would establish “death panels” for the elderly and disabled, and carried other outrageous lies. Click here for the real facts on health care reform legislation and why so-called death panels are egregious scare-monger tactics and lies.
Ohio AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer “Petee” Talley says health care reform is a crucial issue for Ohio workers, thousands of whom once were employed in the auto and other manufacturing industries. Says Talley:
They are the workers who lost their health care coverage when they lost their jobs through layoffs or the company they worked for moved overseas or to a nonunion state. Some have found new jobs, but they don’t have the same benefits as before, and many more are still looking for work. Heaven forbid that they or a member of their family gets seriously ill. They couldn’t afford to get treatment.
So for Ohioans, health care reform, which would bring affordable care for families, is a major priority.
Loree Soggs, president of the North Shore Labor Council in Cleveland, adds:
Health care reform is what the doctor ordered. Our unions are at the bargaining table struggling to keep our health care coverage. It would be great for everyone to get a national health care plan. It’s a no-brainer.
Meanwhile, in Columbus, Sen. Sherrod Brown hosted a lively two-hour health care forum yesterday where some 200 people crowded into a conference room while others listened in two overflow rooms. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that during the town hall, Brown said insurance companies are giving people bad information about the legislation and telling them they will lose their private coverage.
However, “doing nothing is unacceptable,” Brown said, adding:
If we don’t do anything, then we might see premiums double and you may not be able to afford coverage five years from now.
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The entire Obama-Big Pharma “health care reform” is corrupt. It furthers corporate profiteering. Only a “single-payer plan” that would eliminate these parasitic crooks will be affordable to working people. and small business. But “single payer” was not even allowed to be represented at the Senate hearings.
In every major areas, the Obama regime is expanding the agenda of corporate profit, further bankrupting the country.
(More wars, more profits for Big Pharma, trillions of dollars to banking and Wall Street GANGSTERS, more destruction of state and local governments, further destruction of public education, no end to global warming with “cap and trade”,etc.)
Most tragically, the organized labor movement, is now totally powerless because it forever and blindly supports the corporate controlled Democrats (only 10 percent are “pro-labor”) and Obama.
Read this from Common Dreams, full article here:
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/13-10
Published on Thursday, August 13, 2009 by Huffington Post
Internal Memo Confirms Big Giveaways In White House Deal With Big Pharma
by Ryan Grim
A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.
The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.
It says the White House agreed to oppose any congressional efforts to use the government’s leverage to bargain for lower drug prices or import drugs from Canada — and also agreed not to pursue Medicare rebates or shift some drugs from Medicare Part B to Medicare Part D, which would cost Big Pharma billions in reduced reimbursements.
….
(follow link above to full details.)
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(The article below gives more analysis as to how we are all being screwed out of affordable health care by Obama, the Democrats
in collusion with Big Pharma gangsters.)
What is behind the opposition to the Obama healthcare plan?
12 August 2009
President Obama’s proposed restructuring of the US healthcare system has come under ferocious attack over the past week. Right-wing activists, in many cases organized by groups affiliated with the Republican Party or financed by sections of the healthcare industry, turned out at town hall meetings to shout down Democratic congressmen or Obama aides. There have been death threats and some actual violence.
The right-wing attack combines hysterical distortion of the provisions of the Obama plan (frequently, and falsely, branded as “socialized medicine”) with an appeal to the concerns of wide layers of the American population who sense, quite correctly, that the healthcare restructuring being promoted in Washington will come at their expense and will benefit only the big corporate interests.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a12.shtml
If organized labor labor would come in favor of “single-payer” health care, it would at last give notice to the Democrats that the party is over, taking the blind support of labor and working people!
Single-payer is infinitely more import than EFCA!! The possibility of EFCA passing is about zero. Only 10 percent of Democrats ar pro-labor.
What does this mean?
That the labor movement and working people must break with the Democrats and call for a new independent party that champions the economic interests of working people.
To repeat a previous post on WHAT MUST BE DONE TODAY TO REBUILD A POWERFUL LABOR MOVEMENT TO END THE DICTATORSHIP OF CORPORATE GREED THAT IS DESTROYING THE PEOPLE AND THE PLANET!!!
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JerryWells on 06.08.2009 at 19:00 (Reply)
To: Tula Connell, (at NETROOTS CONFERENCE)
“So let me know your ideas and I’ll pack them up and take them with me.”
A mere comment space here is not enough for some “ideas”. The organized labor movement is almost completely impotent in the face of the collapse of the capitalist economy, and the vast devastation to working people that is taking place.
The simple trade union philosophy, of being a “business partner” to capitalism, under the current collapse of U.S. and global capitalism, has effectively allowed the destruction of the trade union movement and is rapidly turning this country into a ‘third world” as far as working people are concerned. The labor movement must re-think it’s entire organizational and political strategy if it is to survive let alone to lead working people.
The system of economics called capitalism, run-amok gangster capitalism, has collapsed. As far as working people are concerned, capitalism will never be “bailed out”, fixed, or reformed in a manner that restores the standard of living needed by working people to survive adequately. BILLIONS AND TRILLIONS of dollars are being sucked up by Wall Street, banks, the military-industrial complex without limit, oversight or even basic accounting.
At the same time public education is being destroyed, public health care is being “reformed” to further the profits of the parasitic health corporations, wars for profit are being expanded, even Social Security and Medicare are being threatened by Obama as entitlements “costing too much”. The greed of gangster capitalism is limitless and is causing the mpoverishment of tens of millions of workers in this country.
Under existing capitalism, employers and investors forever need to maximize profits. Thus manufactures moved labor intensive jobs to China, where workers earn “slave” wages with no benefits, where there are 130 million unemployed in China to keep wages forever low. Employers don’t want to pay the “living wages” needed by workers living in the U.S. Capitalist globalization will forever diminish the living standards of U.S. working people.
Most important, employers don’t want to pay for health care, retirement, or any fringe benefits which further eat up profits.Simple trade unionism wants to get good wages and good benefits that occurred after World War II. The conditions of global capitalism have changed this forever. There is no return to the “good old days” where unionized workers became home owners, owned a car, went on vacations every year. Under existing capitalism this kind of capitalism is no longer a “dream” for working people, but has become a nightmare of impoverishment.
Some ideas:
1. To survive with sufficient food, potable water, clothing shelter, health care, education, for working people, we need to end barbaric capitalism and transition to a democratic socialist economy.
2. The essential “benefits” that working people need today are secured through political struggle, not simple trade union struggle. National health care, Social Security, OSHA standards, public education, disability and retirement insurance, etc. are all secured by political struggle at the federal level. Local employers won’t and can’t afford private health insurance costs or other benefits that we now. THUS ORGANIZED LABOR MUST GREATLY EXPAND IT’S VISION AND PURPOSE TO GO BEYOND SIMPLE TRADE UNION CONTRACT EFFORTS.
2. DUMP THE DEMOCRATS: The greatest impact to improve the power and leverage of organized labor at this conference, would be to break with the Democratic Party and issue a call for the formation of a new socialist political party that represents the economic interests of all working people.
3. MEDIA FOR WORKING PEOPLE! A new national mass media initiative should create new radio and television programs to inform, educate and organize working people into the new party. The anti-labor Rush Limbaughs in the mass media must be challenged. PBS needs a voice of the people to challenge the Wall Street Journal, etc. that control the time and content of a supposedly public media.
4. END THE WARS FOR PROFIT! To bring about this new economy and a new society, vast changes must be made to end the vast waste and corruption that is destroying us all. The unending wars of Bush and Cheney are now being expanded by Obama, promoting all the same crooks to head the key posts of his administration. THE VAST SUMS WASTED ON WAR PROFITEERING ARE VITALLY NEEDED TO RESTORE THE ECONOMY TO SERVE THE NEEDS OF THE PEOPLE.
There is so much that needs to be done! But the first step must be taken by organized labor movement, with people and money resources, to make a start. Is the labor movement leadership too conservative to see the need for change?
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Here is a critical article link worth reading from WSWS:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/aug2009/pers-a06.shtml
Stocks, profits up—Jobs, income down
Whose recovery?
6 August 2009
Patrick Martin
As the Obama administration and the corporate-controlled media tout the supposed signs of an economic recovery, American workers confront a worsening job market, declining real incomes, and the spread of poverty and social deprivation on a scale not seen since the 1930s.
The New York Stock Exchange cracked the 9,000 mark on the Dow-Jones Industrial Average in late July for the first time since January 2, profits for banks and other financial institutions are up, and Wall Street has begun a new round of seven-, eight- and even nine-figure bonuses, with $100 million set aside by Citigroup to reward a single trader in energy futures.
The moneyed elite suffered a severe scare, particularly in the period between September 15, 2008, when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and March 6, 2009, when the Dow hit a low of 6,547. The all-out mobilization of US government financial resources behind Wall Street, with a total potential liability of $23.7 trillion, has at least temporarily restored confidence in the financial markets and pushed stocks up 40 percent. But there has been no bailout for working people.
…
When Obama & Co. boast of a recovery, they are speaking not about the vast majority of the American population. They are talking about a recovery of profitability for Wall Street and the corporate elite, who are their real masters.
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Every aspect of government policy, from the bank bailout to the restructuring of the health care system, serves the same class purpose: to boost the wealth and profits of the ruling elite at the expense of the vast majority of the American people. The “recovery” hailed by the spokesmen for big business is a permanent reduction in the living standards of the working class and the destruction of what little remains of a social safety net. This is the deliberate and conscious aim of the Obama administration.
Patrick Martin
It’s good that people are taking a stand, but if we don’t get the pro-health care reform voices out to the general public, via TV,
our voices will remain whispers. The health care bill itself is available online. Encourage people to check it out for themselves.
Change the public “debate” into one based on what is actually (and verifiably) in the bill.
As long as these companies can continue to bribe politicians with campaign contributions, the corruption will continue. If President Obama wants to get serious about actual health reform, he should first push for laws to be passed through the congress absolutely limiting campaign contributions, and which would throw officials from the health insurance industry, or from pharmaceutical companies, in jail if they get caught making campaign contributions to anyone.
For decades Europe has been a beneficiary of excellent nationwide health care. It wasn’t until the early 1960’s that the English/British single payer system started to erode. This was caused be the introduction of legal immigration imported to drive London Buses and work on the railways. Deterioration has increased since the inception of the European Parliament dictates of the free flow of immigrants from impoverished nations of Northern Europe that has overrun the health care system. When I lived in England their was no co-pays, deductions or premiums, just insurance stamps that the employer and employee paid. I received 3 surgeries with no further cost to me. There was no anguish about debt collectors calling or ending up in front of a bankruptcy judge. As a child and a young man I choose my doctor and received eye and dentistry visits free of charges. One should remember that there a large majority of nefarious special interest groups, who enjoy the status quo and will fight with propaganda and lies against their profiteering.
From the outset, in the days before the battle, the president had the pharma bosses to the White House (In the fable, it is our White House.). Never were the single payer folks invited, never were they asked to testify before the Baucus committee. Our elected representative, including Mrs. Pelos, told us S.P. was not going to be a consideration. Rather than S.P. we would get compromises, practicality and a generalized mess.
Throughout the march to confusion our unions ( with some exceptions, Calif. Nurses and Sheet Metal Workers, who held the ethical ground) and their corportate type leaders could not run fast enough to Obama’s side as he signaled his intention to sell-out on our voiced need for a single payer (H.R. 676). In ths regard, the unions could not have been more servile, more ineffective, more silly looking, indeed, more shameful.
now is the time for the single-payer forced to make their move. If nothing else, this manufactured national “discontent” has demonstrated one clear and simple thing about the health care proposals out there. NOBODY UNDERSTANDS THEM! All of this triangulating and negotiating with the dark side has produced ridiculous, convoluted proposals that may contain some nice elements, but more likely just maintain the profits of the vested power interests.
Single payer is simpler. It’s cheaper. It actually would cover everyone, and its more FAIR! Everyone pays in; Everyone gets services back. The current proposals mean a person like me who has employer-provided insurance will be stuck still paying premiums AND will have to pay more in taxes to cover the uninsured. Single payer REPLACES current insurance premiums with a tax of approximately the same proportion for middle class workers (4-6% or so). Most workers with employee-based insurance would see little to no change in take home pay.
Its quite evident that the Dems have completely blown the messaging and the marketing of their half-ass plan. The tea-baggers almost all love their Medicare but don’t want a “government system”. wtf!?!?!? But what would they think of “Medicare for All”, as many of us refer to single-payer? If the Dems want to pass anything, they’re going to have to bring the message home to the pocketbook. Tell people what the current system costs them per person per year. Then compare that to the new taxes that would replace those tax costs and insurance premiums. That’s how you sell anything to the American people. Show them how it will save them money.