Health Care Advocates Storm Chamber of Commerce

UFCW members and other health care advocates stormed the Chamber of Commerce today, surrounding the building and spilling over the sidewalks and into the street along H Street in front of the White House.

The message was clear- it's time for health care that serves the American people, not wealthy corporate lobbyists.

Photos from today's event:

UFCW Members Take Capitol Hill by Storm

A big thank you to all who came out to yesterday’s health care rally on Capitol Hill yesterday! UFCW members were out in force with thousands of other union members and health care advocates. Together, we sent a strong message to our representatives in Washington that the American people know what we want: a strong public health insurance option and a solution that shares responsibility among employers, individuals, insurance companies, and the government.



UFCW members came from as far away as Washington state. Here’s just a few of their stories and what they had to say:

Christie Menyard lives in South Bend, Indiana where she is a front-end supervisor at Kroger and a UFCW Local 700 mem­ber.

Before Christie was employed with Kroger, she ran her own day-care business. But when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and cancer, she closed her business to take care of him. During this time, Christie got shingles. The resulting medical bills quickly ran through her savings. Christie says, “I feel like I experienced the recession before they announced the recession. Shingles can be a deadly disease, and I feel lucky that I had a family and a little bit of money to help me get through this. I worry about people without even that help. ”

Dawn Cutler has been a Registered Nurse at Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, Washington for over 20 years.

In Dawn's work with women and children in a large hospital birthing center, she sees that patients receive the good care they deserve. Dawn says, “We need to say no to a system that says that if you lose your job you lose your health care. As a nurse, these patients, these families, they are people to me and they deserve the best.”

Eric Lawhorn lives in Charleston, Indiana where he is a truck driver for Riverton Truckers.

When Eric was divorced and lost his health insurance, he turned to COBRA, but the out-of-pocket costs were unbearable. Eric tried to buy insurance on the open market, but was rejected because he’d had kidney stones the previous year. Eric says, “What the insurance companies are doing aren’t right, and I believe in fighting when that happens . . . What do you do? We can’t all be as healthy as an athlete.”

Vincent Germani is a produce clerk at ShopRite in Edgewater, New Jersey and has been a UFCW member since 1979.

Vincent is grateful for the good benefits he has, but worries his 19-year old daughter will lose coverage when she leaves for college as she has to maintain full-time status to be covered under his plan. Vincent been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Four years ago, Vincent had a heart attack. Vincent says, “Thanks to insurance and the union benefits the operations did not cost me. Everything was taken care of. My lost time was compensated by my disability insurance. Many people don’t have that chance. I have more of a safety net than most Americans. There are many people suffering and that’s a shame.”

Leslie Firth is a single mom from Marysville, Washington.

Leslie has worked as a pharmacy technician at Group Health for the past 16 years. In addition to her two 11 and 18-year old children, she cares for a 16-year old teen who lost her mother to cancer in January. Leslie says, “I believe I speak for my co-workers back home when I say ‘quality affordable health care for all can be done.’ We ask our nation’s leaders to make it happen. The longer we wait, the longer each one of us will be suffering for it.”

Massive Health Care Day of Action Today

UFCW members from all across the country will be descending on Congress today to call for quality, affordable health care as part of "Health Care 09 - We Can’t Wait," a massive day of action hosted by Health Care for America Now.

Here's the rundown of the day according to HCAN:

The main event on Thursday will be a large rally held in the Upper Senate Park at 11:30am.

Actress Edie Falco, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), HCAN Campaign Manager Richard Kirsch, CWA President Larry Cohen, AFSCME President Jerry McEntee, SEIU Secretary Treasurer Anna Burger, Governor Howard Dean, Congressman Becerra (D-CA), National Physicians Alliance President-Elect Valerie Arkoosh and other leading Members of Congress and Senators are expected to speak.

Then we'll be heading on to town hall meetings on Capitol Hill and flooding the offices of our representatives.

It looks like it's shaping up to be a historic day for health reform. You can keep up on the action from home by following our Twitter feed or keep tabs on what other advocates are tweetin' throughout the day with the #healthcare09 widget on http://www.ufcwhealthcarenow.org/.

And don't forget to take a minute and write in to your paper on why we need a strong public health insurance option. Even though the majority of Americans want a public health insurance option (and poll after poll says we do), those insurance companies still have a lot of money and power. So write in to those papers and let 'em know what we want!

Thousands march in Seattle to demand health care reform

Members of UFCW Local 21 in Washington state marched alongside thousands of other health care reform advocates from labor and community groups during a rally through the streets of Seattle on Saturday. More than 3,5000 individuals and 190 organizations came together for the event to demand “Health Care for All in 2009.”

U.S. Senator Patty Murray spoke before the crowd of thousands and promised to take the demand for real reform to Washington, DC:

Here in America, families are struggling with the crushing costs of health care that threaten their financial stability, leave them exposed to higher premiums and deductibles and put them at risk of losing coverage as employers struggle to provide coverage.

Here in America, families are losing the very parts of their health care that they value most – their choice of doctors, hospitals, and insurance plans; their choice of treatments and the security and stability that comes from knowing that they are covered if anything goes wrong.

Here in America, people who should be focused on fighting for their lives are instead fighting insurance companies.

Here in America, families are telling their kids they can’t go out for football or baseball or soccer because if they get hurt, there is simply no way to pay the bills.

Here in America, twilight years are darkened by having to choose between seeing a doctor and buying groceries.

Here in America, too many people are limping and crawling into Medicare – like I watched my own parents do.

Here in America, too many people can’t get care when they need it, can’t pay for it when they do and aren’t given a say in some of the most important and personal choices in their lives.

Here in America, we can do better.

Now, some critics out there argue that now is not the time to tackle health care reform. Well to me, that’s shortsighted reasoning and tone-deaf governing.

Investing in our health care system is not a luxury – it’s absolutely critical to our future strength. There is a direct connection between our nation’s long-term prosperity and developing health care policies that stem the chronic bleeding in business and in our state and national budgets.

We must reduce costs and make health care more affordable.

Comcast Doesn’t Pull HCAN’s Ads

You know your thinly-veiled front-group isn’t really getting much traction when you start to outright lie about throwing your weight around.

Last week Health Care for America Now ran this ad targeting disgraced Columbia/HCA CEO Rick Scott and his organization Conservatives for Patients’ Rights:



HCAN bought ad space for “Shady” from May 6 to May 13 so, according to their blog, they weren’t surprised when it stopped running after their purchase expired.

But according to Rick Scott, the ad came down because he wrote an angry letter to Comcast.

I'm sure we've all written angry letters to media service providers before to no effect, but Rick Scott believes he is special. In an email to CPR supporters Scott wrote:

“As you may know, the liberal group Health Care for America Now recently started running a mudslinging TV ad against me personally. After reviewing HCAN's ad, Comcast has determined that it is misleading and has been pulled off the air.”

In a statement, Comcast's Executive Director for Corporate Communications and Government Affairs Sena Fitzmaurice said:

“To clarify -- Comcast has not pulled any ads produced by Health Care for America Now off our systems. The media buy for the ad in question expired on May 13.”

This just goes to show the truth in the statement: “You can try to change the subject, but you can't lie to change the subject.”

Rick Scott said that.

And when he did he was talking about HCAN.

And he was lying.

Opps.

Do Good. Look Good.

Have you gotten your t-shirt yet? What about real health care reform?

Donate $10 or more to Health Care for America Now and you can get this snazzy, UFCW-made t-shirt. It's the perfect thing to wear to show the world that change can't wait.

Help us make 2009 the year we finally get quality, affordable health care for all!
Health Care for America NOW! Contribute.

Congress is starting to hold hearings on health care reform, and it's crucial they hear that you support efforts to win quality, affordable health care for all. Call your Members of Congress and ask them to sign on with Health Care for America Now and work for real reform!

McCain's "Health Care" Plan: Downright Spooky

If ghosts and goblins have got your heart racing this Halloween, you'd do well to steer clear of John McCain's health care plan. You might just die of fright.

At this point in the election season, it is hard to take in all of the information about the candidates. But if one thing grabs your attention let it be this: McCain's plan to tax health insurance benefits is fundamentally flawed, scary, SCARY change.

If you've got good health insurance from your employer, under his plan, you'd be taxed on the dollar value of your coverage. To make this sound better, McCain offers a $5,000 tax break that sounds pretty good at first until you start to realize most plans are way more than $5,000. Plus, who is to say they won't just get rid of that tax break a few years down the road once the employer-provided insurance system has been dismantled?


Above: Check out the new video from Health Care for America Now


If you don't have insurance, good luck getting any if you've got any pre-existing conditions. It's already bad enough trying to get care. Do we really need to make it worse?

Barack Obama has made health care reform a priority. He's got a real plan for making sure American's receive the care they need-- and it doesn't involve you paying hundreds more in taxes or trying to negotiate on your own with your insurance company.

ACTION ALERT: IS HEALTH CARE THE NEXT MORTGAGE CRISIS?

Yesterday, Paul Krugman of the New York Times wrote a great editorial reflecting on the devastating effect McCain’s proposed changes to our health care system would have on working people.

Currently, companies don’t have to pay taxes on the money they spend on employee health care plans. McCain wants to change that. Basically, he wants to take away the tax breaks given to employers and offer much smaller breaks to individuals.

This might sound good at first. After all, your employer has more money than you do, right? So why do they need a break?

But health care costs have already gone up so much that many companies are scaling back their health benefits as it is. Without the tax breaks they currently receive, many companies are going to start dropping plans altogether.

The McCain camp has spun the plan to sound like you’ve now got the right to choose your own coverage. That his plan will fix our nation’s health care crisis by putting it in the hands of American families.

What American families will really have in their hands is a stack of bills they may not be able to pay and plans, like HSAs, that don’t offer real coverage. The $2,500-$5,000 tax break McCain is offering just isn’t going to pay for the over $12,000 that the average family plan actually costs.

You’d think with the U.S. market a state of crisis and families losing their homes because they can’t pay their mortgages, McCain would have learned a thing or two about what happens when you deregulate and leave the well-being of the country up to the whims of the free market.

The health insurance industry is already one of the least regulated businesses in America today. What other service do you pay for when you don't need it, and then get denied the service when you do? At least personal savings accounts at the banks are insured by the FDIC, but where do you go when your insurance company denies care due to a pre-existing condition?

Today, Senator Barack Obama announced his support for Health Care for America Now, a coalition the UFCW joined to fight for quality, affordable health care for everyone. He’s pledged to fight on the side of the American people--not big business.

Tomorrow, we need your help. We’ve got Obama’s support, but we need to know where the rest of Congress stands. Are they with the American people or are they going to leave us on our own until the health care crisis explodes into a catastrophe?

We mobilize tomorrow. If you read this, we need you to be a part of the solution and make the call to hold Congress accountable. So tell your friends and tell your family. Call your representatives and ask them: which side are you on?

Learn more at www.healthcareforamericanow.org