People Before Profit blog

Seniors rally for strong health care reform

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 09:12:00 +0000

HARTFORD - Hundreds of seniors from all over the state gathered at the Chowder Pot restaurant in Hartford to learn about the meaning of health care reform. The gathering of union and community retirees committed to call their representatives and Senator Dodd to thank them for their efforts so far and to urge them to continue to fight for the best possible bill to be voted on later this month.

Panelists vowed to continue the fight for meaningful national health care reform and to counter the lies being told by the "tea baggers," the Republican opposition and corporate profit makers.

The event was sponsored by the Seniors-to-Seniors coalition that includes AARP, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the Services Employees International Union, AFSCME Retirees, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Center of Black Aged and the Association of Jewish Aging Services.

Also on Thursday, AFSCME Council 4 along with five other unions and the Connecticut AFL-CIO sponsored full page ads in four daily newspapers. Headlined
"Working families need health care reform, NOT higher taxes," the ad calls upon readers to call the Congressional delegation and urge language in the final bill "be taken from the House version, HR 3590, which pays for health care reform with a surtax on the wealthiest earners: the same earners who benefited so much from the failed tax policies of the Bush era. The House plan gets it right."

The unions are concerned that the Senate version would require 20% of workers who currently have health care coverage to pay taxes on it.

They warn that the tax would not lower costs, but would result in loss of coverage. The ad quotes a survey of health plan sponsors indicating that "63% say they would cut covered benefits to avoid the new tax - and nearly ten percent of small employers would end their plans altogether."

Panelists at the Seniors to Seniors luncheon included Mary Elia, ARA; Bonnie Gauthier, American Association of Homes and Services, Brenda Kelley, AARP, and Barbara Kennelly, former congressional representative from Hartford and now president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

The speakers noted that while public option will probably not be in the final bill, many other positive aspects are being developed. They committed to continue to fight to improve whatever legislation finally passes into law. In answer to lies being spread against health care reform, they emphasized that health care reform will not cut any guaranteed Medicare services such as doctor visits, hospital care or rehabilitation services.

It was also explained that if Congress does not act on health care this year, Medicade payments to doctors will be cut by 21 percent, with the expected result that they will stop serving Medicare beneficiaries.

Several benefits of health care reform were delineated including:

that the reform will lower drug prices by closing the coverage gap or "donut hole;."
it will make long-term care more affordable and relieve family caregivers' burdens by creating a new voluntary long-term care services insurance program;
it will provide a cash benefit to help seniors and people with disabilities obtain services and supports that will enable them to remain in their homes and communities;
it will improve the quality and coordination of treatment and management of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and high blood pressure;
it will make it easier for seniors in greatest need to get help with paying rapidly rising Medicare premiums and other health expenses;
it strengthens Medicare for the future by adding extra years to its fiscal health.

On Wednesday, during a speech announcing that he will retire from the Senate, Chris Dodd emphasized that his Christmas eve vote for health care reform was "the most important vote of my years in Congress."

NYC students on Facebook, in the street over MTA cuts

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 08:29:00 +0000

NEW YORK-Public high school students, as well as teachers and parents, are organizing in new ways against a proposal by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the city's buses and trains, to take away free-and reduced-price Metrocards currently issued to students.

"Yeah, this is insanely crazy," reads a message from high school student Aleize Jarrett-via Facebook. "I go to school from Bronx to Brooklyn everyday, two fares per day. I don't want to spend $4.50 or whatever just to get to school. It's already worse, since teacher's jobs are getting cut."

People from across the city are in a rage, but young people have taken the lead in organizing. A number of new Facebook groups have sprung up in the past few weeks, including one, "Protest the MTA getting rid of STUDENT METROCARDS," which currently has nearly 100,000 members.

Out of that group, one successful protest of 200 students has already taken place and more are planned.

"The student organizing has been incredibly impressive," Working Families Party spokesperson Dan Levitan told the World. "You've got students using the tools that they use every day in their own life to really organize a rapid response."

"They've used the tools that connect to them to organize themselves," Levitan continued. "They had a protest with hundreds of people that was put together in just a couple of days."

The WFP is fighting the cuts via a more traditional route, through a petition drive. Launched in December, it already has about 10,000 signatures.

Levitan noted that, were the changes to go through, there would be a huge disparity between city students and those in the rest of the state, where, like in the rest of the country, students are picked up by yellow buses and brought to school for free.

While cutting free rides for students has drawn the most attention, the MTA is also drawing riders' ire by pushing other cuts: two subway lines and dozens of bus routes are also on the chopping block.

After a demonstration, New York City Council speaker Christine Quinn called the cuts "a slap in the face to hard working people across our city."

Also slated to go are services for the disabled and the elderly.

"They're going to significantly scale back Access-a-Ride for the disabled. Right now you can call Access-a-Ride and they'll take you basically anywhere you want to go. Under the new thing, they'll just take you to the nearest accessible subway station, and then it's just like, ‘good luck.'"

The MTA voted on the cuts in December, but they aren't slated to take effect until June, giving New Yorkers time to organize.

The students are planning another demonstration on January 11, and the city council is vowing to continue the fight, starting with their own petition drive.

Levitan says that he is optimistic: "This fight continues, and as it gets closer to the time when these cuts get implemented, I think you're going to see that really take off."

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/yourdon/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Court rules in favor of voting rights for felons

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:35:00 +0000

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Seattle, Wash., in a 2-1 decision Tuesday, has ruled in favor of felons the right to vote in state prisons there. The current law violates the 1965 Voting Rights Act and discriminated against racial minorities, says the ruling.

The measure overturns a 2000 ruling of a district judge in Spokane that had banned felons from voting until they are released and off parole.

The court ruling involved a 1996 lawsuit filed by a group of Black, Latino and Native American prison inmates that sued the state because they were disenfranchised due to felony convictions.

Circuit Court Judge A. Wallace Tashima wrote that attorneys for the six plaintiffs that filed suit had "demonstrated that police practices, searches, arrests, detention practices and plea-bargaining practices lead to a greater burden on minorities that cannot be explained in race-neutral ways."

Tashima writes that, "Minorities are more likely than whites to be searched, arrested, detained and ultimately prosecuted."

He points out that studies also find that African Americans in Washington were more than nine times as likely to be in prison as whites and 70 percent more likely to be searched. At one police department officers were more likely to find contraband when searching whites, said Tashima.

The Voting Rights Act "demands that such racial discrimination not spread to the ballot box," he notes.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs relied on research by University of Washington sociologists that found large disparities in arrests and conviction cases between whites and minorities.

If upheld, the ruling would allow more than 18,000 prison inmates and 19,000 felons currently in state custody to get their right to vote back, of which 37.1 percent are minorities. In that group African Americans make up the largest sector at 19.2 percent. Blacks, Latinos and Native Americans make up 12 percent of the state's population.

The lawsuit contended that because minorities make up a large percent of the prison population, a state law that denies inmates and parolees from voting is illegal because it overly limits the voting power of the minority electorate. This problem is a direct violation of the U.S. Voting Rights Act, says the lawsuit.

Supporters of the ruling say the measure could extend ballots to prisoners in other states where studies also show racial bias in criminal justice.

Although the ruling only covers Washington state, if it stands, supporters add it could also be the basis for litigation in any area covered by the 9th Circuit such as Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and the Northern Marianas.

Although there is a series of laws across the country dealing with restoration of felon's voting rights, only Maine and Vermont allow inmates behind bars to cast ballots.

Meanwhile Attorney General Rob McKenna plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court in against the ruling in an attempt to overturn the measure. The appeal has to be filed with the court by April, and the state will seek a stay on felony inmates' ability to vote until the case is resolved.

Voter rights advocates and civil rights leaders on the other hand say the measure is a step in the right direction and welcome the ruling. They add the issues the Washington ruling raises about racial bias in the justice system are often similar cases in other areas where a majority of felons are predominantly people of color. These are issues that permeate the justice system and are relevant throughout the country, where an estimated 5.3 million people nationwide are ineligible to vote because of a felony conviction, they say.

Ryan Haygood with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and lead attorney for the plaintiffs says evidence demonstrates that minorities and whites that committed crimes in Washington aren't treated equally. Allowing felons the right to vote benefits everyone, he told the San Francisco Chronicle, because "participation legitimizes democracy."

Photo: AP Toby Talbot