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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 Margaret Butler, on March 28th, 2011
Portland Jobs with Justice has led the building of a statewide network to strengthen the movement for a single payer health care system. With the addition of all the Oregon Jobs with Justice chapters (Southern OR, Central OR, Eugene Springfield Solidarity Network, and Mid-Willamette Valley) adopting single payer health care as a priority campaign, Oregon JwJ activist are gearing up to fight for a just healthcare system that puts people before profits.
Single Payer Conference a Huge Success
On January 29, over 450 single payer advocates from around the state of Oregon gathered at the First Unitarian Church in Portland to network and advocate for an improved, expanded Medicare for All program to fix our broken health care system.
The conference opened with a plenary talk by Dr Margaret Flowers, Physicians for a National Health Program’s Congressional Fellow. She presented the basics of what a single payer plan does and explained why the recent federal reform, while making a few positive changes, further entrenches the for-profit insurance industry, while failing to provide universal access to good care or to control skyrocketing insurance and care costs for individuals, families, businesses, governments and society as a whole. Flowers
Continue reading Fighting for Single-Payer Health Care in Oregon
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 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 rand wilson, on March 4th, 2010
(Originally published on Working In These Times blog at http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/5639/troublemakers_go_to_school_in_boston)
 BOSTON—More than 90 union members, students and community activists jammed the SEIU Local 888 union hall here on Saturday for a “Troublemakers School” sponsored by Massachusetts Jobs with Justice.
IBEW Local 2222 Business Manager Myles Calvey gave a rousing welcome to kick things off. “We’re not going to get labor’s problems solved in Washington or on Beacon Hill unless we take a page from the civil rights and gay rights movements,” said Calvey, a former New England telecom strike leader. “We’ve got to be a lot more aggressive so that politicians are forced to deal with our issues. We’ve got make our problems, their problems!”
Calvey was followed by a panel of local organizers from the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Angelica Laundry strike, Service Employees’ Local 1199′s Caritas hospital campaign and American Federation of Government Employee’s Transportation Safety Officers organizing drive. Their presentations were followed by a wide-ranging discussion about organizing strategies and reports from other workplace struggles. (To learn more about these campaigns, go to www.ufcwlocal1445.org/Open1445Intro2.htm; http://fairunionelections.org
Continue reading Troublemakers Go to School in Boston
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
By James Haslam, on December 2nd, 2009
Last night the Vermont Workers’ Center’s “Healthcare is a Human Right” Campaign held their second Chittenden County People’s Forum on Healthcare at St. Michael’s College.
 State Senator Doug Racine, chair of Vermont’s Senate health and welfare committee, announced that his committee will begin holding hearings on S.88, the bill that (along with its House companion H.100) will put Vermont on the road to recognizing healthcare as a human right.
“Healthcare is the most basic of human rights,” said Racine. He has scheduled the first public hearing on the bill, to be held jointly with the House health care committee, for January 12, exactly one week after the start of the 2010 legislative session.
Racine’s choice of Tuesday’s forum for the announcement was seen by many as recognition of the success of the Vermont Workers’ Center’s statewide grassroots campaign at putting pressure on the Vermont legislature to enact healthcare reform legislation that embodies human rights principles.
“We now have organizing committees statewide and we have been working with a number of other organizations to build a grassroots network capable of changing what is politically possible for healthcare reform in Vermont. It is clear that
Continue reading Single-Payer Health Care Will Be Taken Up in Vermont 2010 Legislature
By Attica Woodson Scott, on November 3rd, 2009
 After a rally supported by the Kentucky AFL-CIO, Ironworkers, Kentucky Jobs with Justice, Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Nurses Professional Organization, Kentuckians for Single Payer and more on Thursday, October 29th, more than a dozen activists took over the lobby of Humana headquarters in downtown Louisville to show their support for universal health care. After being locked in the Humana building overnight and awakened at 5AM by local news media, the 24-hour take-over ended on Friday, October 30th as eight powerful people exited the Humana building and were greeted by a welcoming crowd of folks gathered for a closing rally.
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