National News
Gaining Support - Cynthia Turner, a registered nurse employed by Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, Calif., watches as Glenn Nishimura of Little Rock, Ark., signs a letter urging Arkansas lawmakers to support health reform that includes a public option.
Gaining Support - Cynthia Turner, a registered nurse employed by Kaiser Permanente in San Diego, Calif., watches as Glenn Nishimura of Little Rock, Ark., signs a letter urging Arkansas lawmakers to support health reform that includes a public option.
Photo Credit: Dan Limke
Door-to-Door for Real Health Care Reform
Wearing scrubs with the slogan, “House Calls for Health Care,” dozens of doctors and nurses represented by AFSCME and affiliate unions went door-knocking in nine key states last fall. Their goal: increase pressure on lawmakers to pass a health reform bill that includes a public option that would compete with private insurers.
The health care professionals took the case for real health care reform to Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and Ohio—and the professionals told it like it is.
“I’m sick of insurance companies telling us how to do our jobs and what we can and cannot do to provide the best care for everyone,” said registered nurse Tom Connelly of Trumbull Memorial Hospital in Warren, Ohio. Speaking at a Cleveland press conference, Connelly, who also is president of AFSCME Local 2026 (Council 8) added that—without a public option—“all of this is just lip service and the insurance companies run business as usual.”
In Nebraska, registered nurse Mary Gallagher told the Lincoln Journal Star that she was out knocking on doors because “we need real reform that keeps my patients’ health in the hands of their nurses and doctors and not their insurance companies.” Gallagher works at the Lincoln Regional Center and is a member of Nebraska Association of Public Employees (NAPE)/AFSCME Local 61.
Valentina Zamora-Arreola, who works the night shift at Kaiser Permanente in Downey, Calif., traveled to Little Rock, Ark., to explain why a public option is critical to breaking the insurance companies’ stranglehold over health care provided by professionals like her.
“There are many nights I’ll walk into a room where the patients are not worried as much about their health as how they’re going to pay for it,” says Zamora-Arreola. She is a member of United Nurses Associations of California (UNAC)/UHCP/NUHHCE, an AFSCME affiliate.
Membership Cards on the Way
Your new AFSCME Membership Card was mailed recently. In addition to your name and the number of your AFSCME local, the card includes a unique AFSCME Membership ID and a barcode that represents that ID.
Membership IDs can be used to register for discounts and services through AFSCME Advantage, AFSCME conventions, meetings, workshops, training, scholarships, PEOPLE activities and the new PEOPLE MVP Rewards program that begins this year.
This is a valuable card. When it arrives, keep it!
Report Calls for Fairer Tax System
Working families and the unemployed depend on public services the most, but they are hit the hardest by budget cuts aimed at cutting those programs. A recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy suggests a better way: making the wealthy pay their fair share of the tax burden.
The report points out that most states tax middle-and low-income families more heavily than the richest because they rely on sales and property taxes. Those taxes disproportionately hit lower income groups. Income taxes are more significant for those with the highest incomes. But in states with either no income tax or flat income tax rates, the disparity is greatest.
The worst states, which the report calls the “Terrible Ten,” force families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale to pay nearly six times as much of their earnings in taxes as do the wealthy. Those states are Alabama, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Washington.
“The harsh reality is that most states require their poor and middle-income taxpayers to pay the most taxes as a share of income,” says Matthew Gardner, lead author of the report, entitled “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States.”
For more information on how to use the report to educate lawmakers and others in local tax reform efforts, please contact AFSCME’s Research and Collective Bargaining Services Department: (202) 429-1215.
