United Professions joined with the Vermont Workers' Center and several other organizations for the first day of the Vermont legislature to advocate for Healthcare as a Human Right. Mari Cordes, President of the Vermont Federation of Nurses & Health Professionals was the MC for the event.
Vermont Medical Team Visits Haiti
To Plan Mission for New, Permanent Union-Run Clinic
A team of medical professionals from Vermont traveled to Haiti on Wednesday, July 27 to gather information on the healthcare needs in order to establish a union-run clinic and provide healthcare skills training, in collaboration with the global union federation, Public Services International (PSI) and its affiliate in Haiti, the Confederation of Workers in the Public and Private Sectors.
Health Care Reform S.88 was passed out of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee. Originally, S.88 was a bill that laid out a plan for a single payer system. The bill, as passed out of committee, is essentially a summer study bill that will produce 3 options for health care reform, which will be developed by an expert. The bill calls for a 5-person board who would choose, and work with, the expert who would develop the options - 1 appointed by tthe Speaker, 1 appointed by the President Pro Tem, 2 appointed by the Governor, and 1 appointed by the other 4 board members. The composition of this board is of great concern to the advocates, as it is heavily weighted towards the Governor, who has not been a supporter of true health care reform. The bill is currently in the Senate Appropriations committee (as there is an appropriation required). Politics are running rampant, given that 3 of the gubernatorial candidates are senators - they are all jockeying for position on this bill.
Read more for an update from our lobbyists on what's been happening at the statehouse with Health Care Reform, Higher Education, Early Childhood Education, and Nursing.
MONTPELIER - January 6, 2010: United Professions leaders joined more than two hundred Vermonters from the Vermont Worker's Center "Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign (HCHR)," to fill the Cedar Creek room at the Statehouse today to deliver thousands of postcards to the leadership of the State Legislature and to take action on the two single-payer healthcare bills, S.88 and H.100, and mend the broken healthcare system this year.