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Health Care Action Week: Calling, Writing and Meeting with Congress |
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The health care reform fight rolls on this week on Capitol Hill and working families, local and state union activists and leaders are making sure Congress hears from those who aren’t singing from the health insurance industry’s hymnal.
The Senate Finance Committee, which voted down a public health insurance option last week, is expected to vote and pass its bill tomorrow or Wednesday. The next step is to merge that bill with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee legislation that includes a public option and doesn’t tax workers health benefits. That could be on the Senate floor as early as next week. House action will likely come soon after the Senate mover.
On Wednesday and Thursday, more than 125 labor activists and leaders from 27 states will be on the Hill telling lawmakers that a final bill must, like the HELP bill, include a public option and not tax workers’ health care benefits.
They also will deliver tens of thousands of handwritten letters from union members and Working America members and other activists demanding comprehensive health care reform that reins in health insurance company abuses and provides coverage for all. A sample of the messages Congress will receive include this letter from Patrick of Omaha, Neb.:
During my mother’s struggle with cancer, she lost her insurance because she was unable to work. She paid in her entire life, but lost it when she need it the most. It is criminal what insurance companies do to working class Americans.
(See the video and check out the latest in a series of exposés on greedy insurance abuses from Brave New Films.)
Heather in Florida writes:
I’m not looking for handout. I currently work…and attend college, however I am still unable to afford health insurance. I feel health care should be a right not a privilege.
The meetings with union activists and leaders and the letters won’t be the only way lawmakers hear from working families. On Oct. 7, members of AFL-CIO unions will be on the phones as part of a National Call-In Day for health care reform, with this message:
We need health care reform now that:
- Controls costs and doesn’t tax our benefits.
- Provides guaranteed coverage to all Americans.
- Includes a public health insurance plan option.
- Holds insurance companies accountable.
- Requires all employers to pay their fair share.
Join in Wednesday and call your two senators and your representative: 1-877-323-5246.
5 Comments
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If the healthcare reform bill passes it is suppossed to take effect in 2013; we don’t need healthcare reform in 2013; we need it NOW! Don’t these idiots in Washington, D.C. understand that everyday that goes by puts another person or child’s life in jeopardy with this joke that they call health insurance ruling people’s lives in this country?
I lived and worked in Canada for six years and the difference in the two healthcare systems is the difference between night and day. Canada’s is a bright shining daylight, where healtcare is NOT an issue, much less a MAJOR issue in their citizenry’s life, whereas America’s is a dark, bleak nighmare of people being turned away from the proper care because they are still breathing and don’t have the necessary “insurance card” or money. BTW, any Canadian can walk into any hospital in America and get better health care than an American without the card that they have. Explain that?
Don’t we have enough things in the working man’s life to cause him troubles than to add this healthcare maze we all live under?
May our friends respect us, trouble neglect us, angels protect us and heaven accept us.
Peace,
Keith G.
Please consider taking a moment and participating in this effort. We must be heard on health care reform! Every time we go to negotiate an agreement, health care lurks in the background, taking precious dollars away from wages and pensions,and forcing concessions just to keep whatever health care benefits we have left. With health care costs under control, we can focus on better working conditions, wage and pension improvements, and raise the quality of life for working families. Health care is everyone’s issue.
We need a single payer system; the majority favor it; why isn’t it even being discussed by that Boo Ka Ka who calls himself a Senator-you know the one. I guess 4 million dollars can get most any Senator to say just about anything. It takes the Senate one day to pass a resolution about ACORN, & 9 months to decide not do anything about getting adequate health care to the people of this country. They only talk about the pro life pro choice pro marriage pro war pro democracy, pro this, pro that, but almost never anything that means much of anything. I found out the real reason they went after ACORN was because they don’t like the working poor to vote, & that actually, they were doing their job, like registering voters in neighborhoods they’d probably be scared to go to. No one else knows why of course, except them.
“Nearly 45,000 people die in the United States each year — one every 12 minutes — in large part because they lack health insurance and can not get good care,Harvard Medical School researchers found in an analysis released on Thursday (September 17,2009.)”
This is why we have to do something.
The world sees America as
“Government of Big Business, by Big Business, and for Big Business”, honest Joe, is not enlightened by the “big business media”, who depend on big business for advertising $$$$.
With reference to Health Care Reform, all senators should declare if they have received any “contributions” from the health industry or related business; “Yes” or “No” and this must be posted with their vote on health care. Better still they should be barred from involvement in writing or voting on the bill. This will give “honest Joe” a chance for decent Health Care.
Most other countries would call these “contributions” bribes …. except in this country when the recipients of these monies make the rules!
The simple truth is that Health Care in this country is so expensive, because of the hundreds of millions of dollars paid annually to health care executives.
Through their lobbiests, These executives have the funds, through their lobbiests, to buy out enough senators to destroy health care reform.