Nominate Your Health Care Reform Champion of Change
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The White House Champions of Change program wants to honor those people who have helped people in their communities take advantage of the Affordable Care Act’s growing benefits and those who have championed access to health care for everyone in their community throughout their careers.
Before the nearly two-year-old Affordable Care Act was passed, children were refused insurance coverage because of a pre-existing condition and people with chronic conditions ran out of insurance coverage because their expenses hit lifetime limits. Now young adults under the age of 26 can stay on their parent’s coverage.
Nurses Charge Equity Firm with Putting Profits Over Patient Care
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On New York City’s Park Avenue today, hundreds of nurses from National Nurses United (NNU) and their supporters rallied outside the offices of Cerberus Capital Management to protest the practices of the multi-billion dollar private equity firm’s health care unit, Steward Health Care System.
Cerberus-Steward operates 10 hospitals in Massachusetts and has partnered with a number of physician practices in New York City. It is entering the health insurance market as well. Cerberus-Steward has come under increasing criticism for cornering the market with predatory practices, undercutting patient care with its push for profits. Says NNU Co-president Karen Higgins, RN:
As patient advocates on the frontlines, nurses are sounding the alarm about the entrance of cut-throat private equity firms, like Cerberus, into the health care marketplace. It is a development that spells danger for patients and communities across the country. Read the rest of this entry »
Health Care Reform Brings Coverage to 2.5 Million More Young People
Since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law last year, some 2.5 million more young people have health insurance than before the law took effect, according to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Under the health reform law, children can remain on their parents’ health insurance plans until they turn 26, and families have flocked to sign up young adults. Says U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius:
Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, 2.5 million more young adults don’t have to live with the fear and uncertainty of going without health insurance. Moms and dads around the country can breathe a little easier knowing their children are covered.
BTW, this is the same health care reform that every Republican presidential candidate and congressional leader says should be repealed.
Hyatt Seeks to Slash Chicago Workers’ Health Care
Since 2009, more than 1,500 employees of four Hyatt hotels in Chicago have been fighting for a fair contract. Now the company is threatening to strip away their health coverage if they don’t abandon their fight and call off their boycotts.
Represented by UNITEHERE! Local 1, the workers have stood firm on demands to curb subcontracting and ease working conditions for housekeepers—demands met by Hilton and other Chicago hotel employers.
Christian Toro, a Hyatt banquet server, says: Read the rest of this entry »
Nurses Rally Across the Country in Support of UK Strikers
NNU Communications Director Chuck Idelson sends us this report.
Thousands of nurses from National Nurses United (NNU) along with other union members and allies held rallies in six cities across the country today to support the nearly 2 million British workers striking in the United Kingdom.
U.S. nurses held the actions at British consulates in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, Orlando (Fla.), and San Francisco, and at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest the conservative ruling party’s plans to cut public pensions in the United Kingdom.
Corporations in Britain, like the United States, are sitting on massive cash reserves while government officials in both nations push reductions in retirement security and other cuts.
In Washington, D.C., where 200 nurses and their supporters gathered at the Embassy of the United Kingdom, Karen Higgins, an ICU nurse at the Boston Medical Center who is co-president of National Nurses United, said
If people have to keep working with no pensions, it is hurting everyone.
Rajini Raj, RN, agreed:
We’re here in support of the more than 2 million people striking in Great Britain today. We know an injury to one is an injury to all even if there is an ocean between us.
Jos Williams, president of the DC Central Labor Council, summed it up this way:
Today, it is the British workers and tomorrow it is the American workers.
UNITEHERE! Local 6—a Dynamic Force in N.Y. City
Despite the odds, members of UNITEHERE! Local 6 won respect and a contract that boosts wages and health care coverage from a restaurant owner who likened workers to chairs—yet another victory for the 23,000 low-wage service employees who are members of New York City’s dynamic union.
Today’s American Prospect feature on Local 6 showcases an effective union model that helps hotel, motel and restaurant workers win a voice on the job.
Check it out here.
New Census Data Show Many in Middle Class Are ‘Near Poor’
When the U.S. Census Bureau retooled its formula for determining the number of poor people living in the United States, the number the bureau estimated to be living in poverty shot up from 46.1 million to 49.1 million. Now that reformulation is shining a light on the vast numbers of people who appear to be middle class but who actually fall into a category called the “near poor.”
The new numbers reveal a grim portrait of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, often without access to health care, many behind the middle-class exterior of a suburban home. According to the new data, some 51 million Americans receive incomes that are just 50 percent higher than the official poverty line—a figure that is 76 percent higher than the previous measure, according to The New York Times, which reports:
Bipartisan Group Tells Super Committee: Don’t Tax Workers’ Health Care
Andrew Pantelis, a lieutenant with the Prince George’s County Fire and EMS Department in Landover, Md., says that taxing employer-provided health care benefits—a proposal before the so-called budget deficit “Super Committee”—would “hurt millions of working class Americans.”
Pantelis, president of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 1619, spoke at a Capitol Hill conference today where Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) released a letter to the Super Committee opposing elimination of the current tax exemption of the health care coverage employees receive at work. The letter was signed by 160 representatives of both parties.
Some 60 million Americans would face a bigger tax bill under the proposal. Says Pantelis:
Report: Without More Investment in the Young, Middle Class Could Disappear
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In “The State of Young America: The Databook,” the economic experts at Demos demonstrate that by virtually every measure, the fortunes of America’s young people are falling under a deluge of debt, shrinking opportunity, rising costs of living and lack of access to health care. Writing with members of the Young Invincibles think tank, the authors write:
The path that each young person takes during their young adulthood often largely determines whether they end up in the middle class as older adults. Given the nation’s current anemic levels of investment in young people, the existence of our future middle class is severely imperiled.
The Databook looks at the well-being of 18- to 34-year-olds across the span of a generation in such areas as income, higher education and family life. Notable among the findings is that as the business environment became increasingly hostile to unionization, the fortunes of young people fell. Today, the Databook tells us, only 10 percent of young people have union representation, compared with 20 percent in 1980. Consequently, with few exceptions, only those who have attained a bachelor’s degree have seen their incomes rise over the course of the past three decades. (Once exception would be those who find their way into a trade union apprenticeship.) Read the rest of this entry »
Health Care Costs Rising; Employers Pass Increases to Working People
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The Kaiser Family Foundation”s latest survey of health care costs shows half of workers at small firms with individual policies now face annual deductibles of $1,000 or more. In 2006, that figure was 16 percent. At large firms, the share has grown from 6 percent to 22 percent over the same five years.
As health care insurance costs continue to rise, Congress should look at ways to curb health care costs rather than leaving it to private employers who have never done a good job of that, says Drew Altman, president of the Kaiser Family Foundation. In fact, Congress has a good example of ways to lower costs right under its nose, Altman writes.
