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By James Haslam, on May 25th, 2011
The Vermont Worker’s Center invites you to tune into a special presentation on Vermont’s new universal health care law, to be signed by Governor Shumlin on May 26 at 10am. As a direct result of a highly energized and organized grassroots people’s movement for the human right to healthcare, Vermont has become the first state in the country to pass a bill for a universal, publicly financed healthcare system that commits to providing healthcare as a public good.
Join the Vermont Workers Center/JwJ at the Vermont Statehouse Room 11 at 9:00AM E.S.T. Thursday, May 26, 2011 or tune into the live stream here.
Immediately before the bill signing ceremony in the Vermont Statehouse, the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign will give a presentation to the press and the public, live-streamed online to a national audience, to explain the significance of this new law and provide a human rights assessment of its key provisions. Leading members of the Campaign will also look ahead at the challenges Vermonters face as powerful special interests, led by the deep-pocketed insurance industry, gear up to derail the transition to universal healthcare over the next few years.
The Vermont Worker’s Center
Continue reading Live Streamed Press Conference on Signing of Vermont Universal Healthcare Bill H.202
By James Haslam, on March 31st, 2011
On Thursday, March 24, members of the grassroots Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign cheered on as the Vermont House of Representatives voted 92 – 49 to pass the universal healthcare bill, H.202. The House bill passed as a result of thousands of Vermonters speaking out and demanding that healthcare be treated as a human right and provided as a public good.
“This bill puts Vermont on a path to a system in which every Vermonter can get the healthcare they need when they need it, and the financing of that system is shared equitably by all. This is a huge step forward,” says Peg Franzen, President of the Vermont Workers’ Center.
The Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign still hopes to strengthen the bill in the Senate based on its human rights principles of universality, equity, accountability, transparency and participation.
“This bill is a road map and it gets Vermont started down that road. We are fighting hard to have human rights principles be the guidelines for this bill, because we must have a system that works for everyone,” says Franzen. “We’re asking the Senate to specify that Green Mountain Care will be financed equitably, which means that people
Continue reading Vermont House Passes Universal Healthcare Bill
By James Haslam, on January 7th, 2011
 More than three hundred Vermonters converged at the Statehouse on January 5th to deliver more than four thousand petition signatures to lawmakers Shap Smith, John Campbell, Claire Ayer and Mark Larson. The petition demands that Vermont lead the nation in the adoption of universal healthcare. The petition also builds on last year’s passage of Act 128 the “Universal Access To Healthcare Act,” which mandates that Vermont create a healthcare system which meets the human rights principles of universality, equity, accountability, transparency, participation and healthcare as a public good. The rally also comes in anticipation of the release of the state mandated universal healthcare system options, designed by Dr. William Hsiao, expected on January 19th of this year.
The Cedar Creek room of the Statehouse was packed with Healthcare Is a Human Right supporters from all across the state in red shirts carrying signs, along with many legislators on the first day back in the Statehouse. Mari Cordes of the Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals Union at Fletcher Allen, spoke about her personal
Continue reading Vermonters Rally for Health Care for All
By jwjnational, on December 13th, 2010
Workers at Express Scripts, Inc. facilities in Bensalem, PA – members of SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania – voted overwhelmingly on December 9th and 10th to ratify a settlement agreement that will preserve approximately 400 jobs at the Street Road facility, reversing the pharmacy benefit manager company’s announcement of plans to shutter all of its Bensalem operations.
In addition to maintaining most of the company’s workforce at the Street Road facility in Bensalem, the settlement provides a substantial severance package to approximately 500 workers facing layoff as a result of the closure of the Marshall Lane facility and some downsizing at Street Road.
No mistake about it – it’s a very sad state of affairs that many people who helped build ESI are still being laid off. But through the power of workers sticking together and engaging in a national campaign to garner support and pressure Express Script, the union was able to save 400 good jobs and win an excellent severance package for laid-off workers that most non-union workers might only dream about. “The support we got from the community, other labor unions and people across the country was overwhelming,” said Pam Rogers, President of SEIU Healthcare PA.
Due
Continue reading Express Scripts Takes Steps to Correct Scroogey Behavior
By Jonathan Kissam, on November 12th, 2010
 For more than two years, the Vermont Workers’ Center/Jobs with Justice, a community-based workers’ rights organization, has been leading a statewide campaign to implement a universal and equitable healthcare system in the state of Vermont, the Healthcare Is a Human Right Campaign. This campaign won legislation in the 2010 legislative session which commits the state to implementing a new healthcare system which meets the human rights principles of universality, equity, accountability, transparency and participation. Dr. William Hsiao, who designed Taiwan’s single-payer system, is designing three options for the state, one of which will be a single-payer system and all of which must meet the human rights principles. While there are many struggles ahead to make sure that the state chooses and implements a new plan that actually meets human rights principles, Vermont is certainly headed in the right direction.
The contrast with the national situation is stark, especially in light of last week’s election results. The 2008 election of Barack Obama as President and majorities for the Democratic Party in both houses of Congress
Continue reading Vermont as a Catalyst for National Change in the Struggle for Health Care
By James Haslam, on May 5th, 2010
 MONTPELIER – Vermonters from all across the state converged on the statehouse on May 1st in a demonstration to show that Vermont can and should be the first state in the nation to recognize healthcare as a human right and provide it as a public good by implementing a single-payer, universal healthcare system.
Over a thousand people marched from the Montpelier City Hall down to the capital building accompanied by drums, dancers, puppets, baloons and signs supporting universal healthcare whiloe chanting “hey, hey what do we say? Vermont is ready to lead the way!” The marchers then joined another two hundred participants already at the Statehouse lawn and swarmed up the capitol steps for a festive rally. They were joined by US Sen Bernie Sanders and the rally also featured skits by various regional organizing committees of the “Healthcare Is A Human Right” campaign, musical performances by Vermont artists, and speeches by campaign leaders from all parts of the state.
Sanders, a longtime advocate of universal care, called it a “moral disgrace” that the U.S. is the only
Continue reading 1000 Rally For Single Payer Healthcare in Vermont
By Allison Fletcher Acosta, on April 8th, 2010
 In 2008, the Vermont Workers’ Center/JwJ launched the Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign. On May 1, 2009 their “Healthcare Is A Human Right” Rally at the Statehouse drew over 1,200 participants and was the largest weekday rally in the state capitol’s history. They are gearing up now for an even bigger rally this May 1st. Over the past few months the campaign has organized a series of People’s Forums across the state with almost 100 state legislators and over 1,000 total participants. They have released two videos about the campaign, “If Vermont Leads, the Rest of the Nation Will Follow” and “We Ain’t No Fools Day.”
Yesterday, the Vermont State Senate voted 28-2 in favor of the S.88 healthcare bill. The bill calls for the Legislature’s Health Care Reform Commission to hire consultants who will design three health care models with implementation timelines beginning in July 2012. One of the three models must be a single-payer system that is government-administered and publicly financed. All three of the models must meet the Healthcare is a Human Right principles of universal,
Continue reading Step Forward in Vermont’s Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign
By James Haslam, on January 26th, 2010
 A team of VT Nurses, EMTs, and paramedics from Fletcher Allen Health Care in Burlington, VT, members of the Vermont Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals (AFT), are organizing donations and groups of volunteers to go to Haiti in the coming days, weeks and months to help with the relief efforts. Below is a report from Mari Cordes, RN from the amazing first group of Fletcher Allen nurses and providers who are in now in Haiti. The Vermont Workers’ Center /JwJ is proud that Mari is also a major leader in the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign.
After much effort organizing transport, gathering more supplies and continuing to develop very important infrastructure and network for this and future teams, working with the Cruz Roja in the Dominican Republic, communicating with Partners in Health in Haiti and our own reconaissance team that struck out ahead of us yesterday, we have joined the rest of our group in a large medical compound in Jimani. Jimani is a border town with Haiti on
Continue reading A Nurse’s Report From Haiti Earthquake
By Erica Smiley, on January 15th, 2010
So we didn’t win the Public Option. It has been replaced with a vaguely defined government-regulated insurance exchange.
Additionally, labor leaders were not able to completely remove the tax on working people to generate money for that program. As of now, they were able to:
delay the tax for those of us who are state/local government employees or who have collectively bargained agreements,
to increase the thresholds for premiums taxed for women, seniors and those with high risk occupations—whose health insurance premiums tend to be higher, and
to exclude dental and vision from the calculations for the tax (starting in 2015).
Nevertheless, the inclusion of any tax on working people instead of taxing the corporate interests that got us in this situation in the first place is a qualitative loss from what we started with.
This is not the bill we fought for.
Single-payer advocates and many others might argue that we did not demand enough in the first place. And there is definitely validity in the notion that organized labor should have done more to support the single-payer movement outside of the beltway, even if they were pushing the public option on Capitol Hill.
In light of the recent
Continue reading Opinion: No public option? Now what?
By James Haslam, on January 8th, 2010
More than two hundred Vermonters from the Vermont Worker’s Center “Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign (HCHR)” filled the Cedar Creek room at the Statehouse on January 6th, coming from all over the state, to deliver thousands of postcards to the leadership of the State Legislature and to take action on the two single-payer health care bills, S.88 and H.100, and mend the broken healthcare system this year.
“We came here today because we seek to change what is politically possible in the health care reform process,” said Susan Lucas, RN president of the nurses union at Copley Hospital. “We believe that health care is not a commodity but a public good shared by all. The time is now to make health care a basic fundamental right for every single person”
The event received a lot of attention from the Vermont media. Check it out!
“Rally for Health Care Reform in Vermont”, WCAX
“Health Care Rally Held at Vermont Statehouse”, WPTZ
“Workers Lobby for Single Payer Health Care”, Vermont Public Radio
“Flurry of Activity in First Day of Session”, Vermont Press Bureau
And we’re just getting started! There
Continue reading Health Care is a Human Right in 2010
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