anja's blog

A coalition in Maine - the Maine People's Alliance, the Maine AFL-CIO and the Maine State Nurses Association - held press conferences in Portland and Bangor to kick off their new Health Care Is a Human Right Campaign.

Watch the highlights of Vermont's large May Day march and hear how a member of the Put People First campaign describes the growing unity among the many struggles for our human rights.

Check out this article in the Bosten Globe:

For the fifth year in a row over well over a thousand people from all over Vermont will participate in at a huge May 1st Statehouse Rally.  In 2009, we came to change what was politically possible in healthcare reform. In 2013, its become clear that what we really need to make possible is real democracy itself.

[...] At Birdie’s Cafe in Westminster Friday, three members of Carroll County’s chapter of Healthcare is a Human Right Maryland and statewide organizer Sergio España told of the formation of the grassroots campaign locally. They told of their excitement for the state’s first speakout — a rally to share health-care stories — which will be held in Carroll County on Saturday.

They spoke passionately about making health care a public good.

MONTPELIER — In 2009, the Vermont Workers’ Center convened the first-ever May Day rally as a way of demonstrating political support for single-payer health care.

Four years later, this annual “day of action” will include a call for increased government spending on programs to improve the lot of poor and working-class Vermonters. James Haslam, director of the Vermont Workers’ Center, said he expects “thousands” to show up for a daylong event Wednesday that will include a rally on the Statehouse lawn.

One of the most important lessons I’ve gained in life is that when you have a problem, you figure out what’s causing it and get down to the root of the matter. Gov. Shumlin’s proposals to cap Reach Up and limit the Earned Income Tax Credit are a clear example of misunderstanding the problem, and therefore calling for a solution that won’t fix it.

Today's New York Times editorial, printed below, condemns proposals to put more police in schools and thus further criminalize students. The Dignity in Schools Campaign has long advocated for positive alternatives to police in schools and is supporting the You Can't Build Peace with a Piece initiative. Sign the petition to President Obama and Congress here. 

The closer we get to implementing key elements of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, the more information we receive about the federal reform’s inability to address the failures of market-based health care.  From the profiteering of insurance corporations, private hospitals and the pharmaceutical industry, to the increasing privatization of the public Medicare and Medicaid programs, evidence is mounting that the upcoming “reforms” may be entrenching the health care crisis rather than solving it. Insurance companies are threatening cost hikes in the Exchange marketplaces, and reports are already coming in from some states about how the Exchange may reduce, rather than increase, access to care.

Ever since the Vermont Workers’ Center started the Workers’ Rights Hotline in 1998, we have heard from countless workers and their families about the hardship and suffering caused by the lack of paid sick days. It has become clear that the right to paid sick days is critical for the well-being of workers, their families and our communities. It is core to our human right to a safe and healthy workplace, our human right to health and healthcare, and our need to hold down a job and take care of our family at the same time.

Most health care reform advocacy – from single payer to Obamacare – has focused on the question of how our health care system should be financed, given the high number of uninsured and underinsured people and the suffering caused by an insurance industry whose business model depends on denying access to care.  Yet insurance corporations are not the only ones profiteering from market-based health care: the pharmaceutical industry, medical equipment companies and private hospitals are also raking in huge profits.