Alliance for Retired Americans Fights for Reform, and Other Health Care News
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Priscilla King, an Alliance for Retired Americans member from New Hampshire, got the chance to join House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (D-N.H.) for yesterday’s unveiling of the House’s historic health care reform bill.
King noted that one of the many ways the bill would improve our health system is by closing the “donut hole” that affects seniors who gets prescription drugs through Medicare.
The current structure of Medicare’s drug coverage leaves a $1,700 gap if your costs are more than $2,830 a year. King and her husband have been victims of that flawed policy and have gone into debt to pay for the drugs they need.
Defense Employees Celebrate Repeal of Anti-Worker Personnel System
After a tough six-year battle, U.S. Department of Defense employees are celebrating a major victory today. The 2010 Defense authorization congressional conference committee yesterday repealed the anti-worker National Security Personnel System (NSPS).
Created by the Bush administration, the NSPS was fatally flawed from the beginning. The personnel system took away Defense Department workers’ right to collective bargaining and personnel appeals. After the last Republican-led Congress refused to block the NSPS, the United Department of Defense Workers Coalition (UDWC) worked tirelessly to restore fairness and equity to the workplace. Members of the coalition, made up of the 36 unions that represent Defense Department workers, helped get out the vote to ensure a Democratic majority in Congress and that majority restored the Defense workers’ collective bargaining rights as part of the 2009 Defense authorization bill.
