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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 Jonathan Kissam, on March 23rd, 2011
Published in the Burlington Free Press March 11th
In the past weeks, anti-worker Republicans have bared their teeth. Republican leader Boehner’s budget proposal in Congress, and attempts by Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to roll back the basic human right for public employees to organize, demonstrate clearly that their agenda is not simply one of “fiscal conservatism.” Instead, it is a highly ideological attack on many of our fundamental human rights. Leaving in place the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, Republicans — and many Democrats — are using the deficits created by those tax cuts to not only attack programs for the most vulnerable, but also to attack women’s reproductive health and prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from acting on climate change and the Federal Communications Commission from protecting net neutrality.
Vermont can be proud that many of our elected officials have stood up against this dangerous agenda. Senator Bernie Sanders galvanized people across the nation with his 8 1/2 hour “Filibernie” in December, and our state is poised to be the first to truly solve the healthcare crisis, supported by a strong grassroots movement around the state demanding Healthcare Is a Human Right. However, the state
Continue reading Defending and Expanding the Public Sector Benefits Us All
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 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 jwjnational, on October 20th, 2009
Cross-posted from the Vermont Workers’ Center blog.
FAIRLEE – This past weekend, the Vermont State Labor Council, AFL-CIO convention delegates representing 9,500-members unanimously voted to:
endorse H.100 and S.88 … (and to) play a leading role together with our allies in the Healthcare is a Human Right Campaign … in mobilizing broad public and political support for single-payer healthcare.
Building a powerful movement “to change what is politically possible” with real healthcare reform is the Vermont AFL-CIO’s #1 priority.
Convention delegates also put a parade of politicians, including four Democratic gubernatorial aspirants, on notice that they expected political leaders to work to pass single payer legislation in Vermont this year. Legislative leaders of the Working Vermonters Caucus also pledged to make passing H.100 and S.88 a priority.
In September in a unanimous vote, the national AFL-CIO endorsed the Single Payer Medicare for All approach to healthcare reform as the “most cost-effective and equitable way to provide quality healthcare for all.” United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard, who chaired the discussion said, “Whatever the outcome of the current debate over health care reform in the 111th Congress, the task of establishing health care as
Continue reading Vermont AFL-CIO Endorses Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign and Joins National in Supporting Single-Payer
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