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Trumka to Netroots Nation: Keep Telling the Truth |
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One of the highlights of Netroots Nation was last night’s stirring keynote address by AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka, who delivered a call to action to the netroots.
Trumka won a standing ovation for his speech, which pointed out the critical role of the netroots in fighting corporate domination and amplifying the voice for progressive change:
Trumka said: “God bless you for looking at power and saying, ‘We won’t back down.’ “
Acknowledging the need to educate a new generation of young workers about unions and why they matter, Trumka pledged to listen to the voices of younger people and to reach out to those who are entering a new kind of workplace in the 21st century. In this troubled economy, he said, the freedom to join a union and bargain was more important than ever. Giving workers bargaining power means giving them the buying power they need to keep our economy going.
You can’t borrow your way into the middle class. You have to bargain your way into the middle class.
The netroots have a vital role to play in countering the misinformation rampant in the mainstream media and particularly the lies and attacks that come from corporate-influenced outlets like Fox News and loud, deep-pocketed interests like the insurance industry. Their falsehoods need to be countered by reason and facts, Trumka said.
The netroots are critical to the future of our democracy, he said, because they can issue the strong call to action that’s needed on issues like financial reform, health care and the Employee Free Choice Act.
You don’t win by sitting back. You win by getting up and fighting back….This is our moment, and together we will.
We can’t just replicate the old economy, where very few saw all the benefits and the vast majority paid the price, Trumka said. We need to rebuild a new economy and achieve the dream of a country where everyone has a seat at the table.
Trumka’s address is a great sign of the growing cooperation between the union movement and the netroots, and the positive response from attendees shows the strength and power of that relationship.
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Trumka Tells Netroots Nation: “My Preference Is Single Payer”
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In a wide ranging speech to the annual
Netroots Nation Convention, Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer,
said, “My preference, and the feeling of many in the labor movement, is
that we should have a single payer health care system.” Netroots Nation
is the largest annual assembly of progressive bloggers and web
journalists.
Trumka’s speech followed an impassioned appeal for single payer by
Pennsylvania State Senator Jim Ferlo who presented the Paul Wellstone
Award to Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY). Massa is a co-sponsor and one of
the most outspoken supporters of HR 676, single payer healthcare
legislation introduced by Congressman John Conyers (D-MI).
Trumka will return to Pittsburgh in mid September for the AFL-CIO
Convention where he is expected to be elected President. More than fifty
resolutions calling for the endorsement of HR 676 have been submitted to
the convention.
Trumka’s remarks can be seen at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnNolT275Yw
HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare system to everyone residing in the U. S.
HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental, mental health, home health,
physical therapy, rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision
care, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, and long term care.
HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry and HMOs.
In the current Congress, HR 676 has 86 co-sponsors in addition to Conyers.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced SB 703, a single payer bill
in the Senate.
HR 676 has been endorsed by 556 union organizations in 49 states including
130 Central Labor Councils and Area Labor Federations and 39 state
AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT, OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO,
MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX, IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI,
MT, NE, NY, NV & MA).
For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
endorsement resolution, contact:
Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee For Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayerHR676.org
08/16/09
Trumka’s remarks may be a little too late in the game, where was he when the debate on HC reform began? Where was he when single payer activists were arrested instead of seated at the table after Obama said EVERYONE would have a seat at the table? When ABC News hosted an hour-long special on health care reform, where were the single payer folks?
@TrueDemocrat
I am with you on single-payer. Something went wrong in a big way in the early days. But nevertheless, I think Trumka’s comments are coming at a very opportune time because of the comments that the Obama administration made over the weekend about letting go of the public option. We need to keep the public option alive. A public system for all Americans, and not just for seniors or poor people, is at least a step in the right direction and it will make the way for single-payer later. Thank goodness Trumka is sending the right message to our representatives in Congress and to the White House.
The time for the AFL-CIO and organized labor to intervene in the fraudulent “health care reform” debate and provide the leadership that Obama and the Democrats have failed to provide! Give notice to all Democrats who refuse to support single-payer will lose support of the labor movement.
Single-payer health care is an absolute and minimal essential for working people. Please read this article of how desperate working people are in need of health care!
Thousands line up at Los Angeles free clinic
Healthcare and the social crisis in America
17 August 2009
Read the full article here:
http://www.wsws.org/category/intviews.shtml
A tidal wave of suffering and human need has been on display this week at a free healthcare clinic inside a Los Angeles-area sports arena. Just as the New Orleans Superdome, packed with refugees from Hurricane Katrina, shocked the world in 2005, the scene in Inglewood, California gives a glimpse of the social crisis devastating America. And it could be multiplied, a thousand times over, in every city, suburb and rural district of the United States, as deepening unemployment and spreading homelessness exacerbate what was already a vast unmet need for healthcare services.
…
Thousands of uninsured workers and their families have flocked to the Forum at Inglewood since Tuesday, seeking free medical and dental care from a group of volunteer doctors, dentists and nurses. The Forum, formerly the suburban home of the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, became for a week the site of the largest free medical clinic in American history.
According to local press accounts, among those seeking help at the clinic were:
• A homeless man who camped outside in order to get glasses
• An unemployed grocery clerk needing a root canal
• A laid-off auto mechanic with back pain
• A laid-off office worker uninsured for two years
• A cancer patient who had exhausted her benefits under her HMO plan
• A community college student with sinus problems and blurred vision
• A laid-off security guard who needed glasses
• An unemployed grocery clerk with a toothache
• A woman whose children are covered under the state Medi-Cal plan but lacks insurance for herself
• A county government worker whose dental insurance deductibles were too high to afford treatment for her husband and three-year-old daughter
• A retired welder who lost his coverage while he was in the middle of getting dentures
• A couple, both employed, who between them needed dentures, a general physical, a breast exam and a pap smear
• A diabetic amputee who could not afford to buy needed drugs
• A retiree needing an X-ray for a lung problem
• A 70-year-old Vietnam vet who put off a root canal for two years because the VA hospital was overwhelmed with more urgent cases
• A 63-year-old woman who received her first new pair of glasses in five years
• A 46-year-old woman who had an abnormal pap smear last year but was unable to follow up because Medi-Cal denied her coverage.
Carol Meyer, a top official of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, visited the Forum and drew the obvious lesson, telling reporters: “The current system of healthcare in the United States is broken.” Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez called the lines outside the Forum, “the perfect distillation of an unconscionable societal failure.”
,,,
As opposed to the fake alternatives presented by the Obama administration—either his reactionary healthcare program or the status quo—the working class must demand an end to medicine-for-profit, and the establishment of free healthcare for all, as a basic human right, to be provided at public expense.”